MOORESVILLE, N.C. (March 28, 2017) – Merle Haggard once sang about running down his country, and how if you did, you’d be walking on his fighting side. Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave a distinct Haggard treatment to those running down members of his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team on social media during this week’s The Dale Jr. Download.
After posting a 16th-place finish in the most recent race at Auto Club Speedway, Dale Jr. noticed some grumbling on Twitter about that, and wasted no time in setting the record straight for those who are walking that line.
“We obviously understand, because we’re living it, that our car needs a little more speed,” he said. “We’re working hard trying to dig and find our weaknesses and the speed we need to get them driving better. It’s not good enough and we know it.
“There’s been an unusual amount of, I won’t call it criticism, but concern, on social media,” Earnhardt Jr. continued. “I stay pretty close to what fans and our supporters are saying on social media, and there’s been a little bit of an unusual amount of concern especially where we finished the first few races. But one of the things that really pisses me off is when they talk about the team, the pit crew or my crew chief. You’ll see a tweet every once in a while where they’re like, ‘change this, get a new guy here, get rid of this…’ This is my team. You’re talking about my family.”
Message delivered, line drawn.
Earnhardt Jr. said that the team is progressing, communicating and working hard.
“It’s not supposed to be easy,” he said of doing what he does for a living. “I’ve worked with this pit crew for a couple of years now. We’ve gotten really close, I’ve seen them perform really well and that’s why I believe in them. So, that’s a little frustrating when you see people so quick to jump to conclusions. We’re all very close, we communicate every week and we’re going to work on this to get it right as a group with who we have.
“We’re 21st in points, and it’s been a slow climb and crawl back into relevancy, trying to get into that top 16 and the Chase. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but we’re working hard.”
The next stretch of racing sees five tracks—Martinsville, Texas, Bristol, Richmond and Talladega—offer some pretty strong hopes for the needed advancement.
“The next five races are all tracks where we’ve won,” Dale Jr. said. “I really enjoy Martinsville, going clock-hunting this weekend. Texas has a new configuration, Bristol…it’s always amazing. Got a lot of good tracks coming up and I’m confident we can run well at them, and we’ll be able to understand how our progression is going, if we’re getting better.
“Heading into the summer, we need to start getting back into that top 15 in points, and if we don’t have a win then, it’s going to be close on getting into the Chase, and we’re going to be fighting some guys for that bubble spot. It’d be awesome to just go ahead and knock out a win, get it locked in.”
With five good tracks—including Talladega, where he’s won six times—ahead, Earnhardt Jr. is definitely feeling the vibe that better performance is on the way.
For much, much more from NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, tune into Dirty Mo Radio and catch the rest of The Dale Jr. Download, which is also available on iTunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud, among other outlets.