Victory at “The Magic Mile” on Dale Jr.’s Bucket List

Ron Lemasters | JR Motorsports | 7/14/2016

Dale Jr. New Hampshire News Sprint Cup Series

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won 26 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in his career. One place he hasn’t won yet is New Hampshire Motor Speedway, and he’d like to do that this weekend.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (July 14, 2016) – Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won 26 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races in his career, at places like Daytona, Talladega, Texas, and Michigan. He’s won at Pocono, Chicago, Richmond, Bristol, Martinsville and Atlanta. He’s won at Dover and Phoenix, too, which are one-mile ovals.

One place he hasn’t won yet is New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NHMS), and he’d like to do that this weekend.

“I haven’t won here,” Earnhardt Jr. stated recently during a Goodyear tire test at the 1.058-mile oval. “I’d like to win everywhere at least once.”

Well, of course he would. It would essentially lock him into the Chase again, add another number to his total and send JR Nation into raptures. It’s more than that, though.

“This track is unique, because it’s not a 1.5-mile track and it’s not really a short track, and I think when you win at various types of configurations it kind of makes you feel like more of the total package, more of an all-around race car driver,” he said. “And the fan base up here, these people are racers. A lot of folks up in the grandstands are local racers or support their local tracks on weekends, so you like to race and do well in front of people who know what’s going on out there.”

All of that is true. NHMS is unique, because of its knowledgeable fan base and the fact that it’s flat and tight, and it presents challenges that other tracks not named Martinsville do not. Brakes are important there, and so is getting the No. 88 Chevrolet to turn in the middle of the corner. Winning there is as much a matter of survival as anything else, and keeping ahead of the changes. The tire test was an opportunity to get some of that out of the way early, he said.

“We don’t get a lot of time to test anywhere, so you welcome the opportunity to get out to the track when not a lot of the competition can,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Of course, there’s a few here, but you look at this as sort of an opportunity to get a leg up on some of the other guys and take some good information back to your teammates.”

While the primary objective was to feed information to Goodyear engineers for the tire they’ll bring this weekend, the secondary (or co-primary, to be honest) was to feed crew chief Greg Ives and the team engineers solid data for the first of two trips to “The Magic Mile.”

“Greg and the guys have a lot of data to go over and understand,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I enjoy racing here, enjoy the track and have had some decent runs here. I’ve never won here, but I’ve had some good runs, led some laps. The Northeastern crowd and fan base for motorsports in general is very active and passionate; you can see that when the Modifieds are here, and they enjoy having us come through here.

“It’s fun to come to New Hampshire, because you know you’re racing in front of people who understand the sport and what’s going on and what they’re seeing. The track’s great. It’s always been one of my favorite stops, always a nice challenge to get around the track itself and the racing is pretty fun.”

Waiting in Victory Lane, should he get there this weekend, is a humongous lobster that the track presents to the winner. Earnhardt Jr. said that incentive is lost on him. He’d rather have the trophy.

“I just want to win the race!,” he cracked. “We haven’t ever won here, had some top fives and top 10s, but we’ve never been that car. It seems to be every time we come here there’s that one guy that stands out above the rest of the field. We just never had that car, so hopefully having the opportunity to test here will give us a better chance.”

The track itself, he said, doesn’t change much from day to day during race weekend.

“It’s really similar, to be honest with you,” he explained. “The only changing this track really does is on Saturday right before the race we really start to rubber the track in, and that last practice the track changes pretty dramatically in that one hour. In the race, it can do the same thing. It will rubber up and the center of the corner can get really tight and the car will struggle on balance. It’s hard to reproduce that stuff at a test, because there’s just not that much rubber on the track, but as we get to really rubbering in the track, all these problems occur and issues with trying to get the car to turn and the balance of the car, all those things start to pop up. It’s hard to produce it here and really work on it at a test.”

What he hopes this weekend’s race comes down to is a chance to win it in the final laps. If you have that, anything can happen, and he has a plan if it does.

“It’s one groove in the corners, and you’re going to have to get aggressive with a guy,” he stated. “You have to use the bumper a little bit, maybe lean on him a little bit. It’s hard to pass, and late in the race you’re not going to have the newest of tires on the car, the cars are going to be slipping around and sliding around a bit. Once you get on the inside of a guy, you kind of take what you need. That’s the advice of my spotter. Every time we’re on the inside of somebody, it’s always take what you need.

“You don’t want to take a guy out of the race or ruin his race, but you gotta do what you gotta do to get by a guy late in the race. These wins are too critical, too important.”

Sitting 13th in points with eight races left until the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup begins, it’s very critical and important to Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 Chevrolet team.