Things that have happened since Dale Earnhardt Jr. last won a race

The Cool Down Lap: Things that have happened since Dale Earnhardt Jr. last won a race

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(October 10, 2011)

Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 14th in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway, extending his career-record winless streak to 123 races.

Earnhardt last won a race in the Cup series June 15, 2008, at Michigan, his only points victory since joining Hendrick Motorsports at the start of the 2008 season.

A lot has happened since then:

• Trevor Bayne celebrated his 18th birthday. Two years and one day later, he won the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s most prestigious race.

• Paul Menard picked up his first win in the Sprint Cup Series in the Brickyard 400, NASCAR’s second-most prestigious race.

• Barack Obama was elected president of the United States and already has launched his re-election campaign.

• Earnhardt has been paired with three crew chiefs—a cousin (Tony Eury Jr.), a technician (Lance McGrew) and a cheerleader (Steve Letarte).

• The Washington Redskins, Earnhardt’s favorite NFL team, started three different quarterbacks—Jason Campbell, Donovan McNabb and Rex Grossman.

• Michael Vick was released from prison after serving 21 months on a dog-fighting conviction and returned to NFL stardom with the Philadelphia Eagles.

• Nine Cup drivers welcomed new babies to their families—Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth (twice), Greg Biffle, Casey Mears, Ryan Newman, Juan Pablo Montoya and Scott Speed.

• Amanda Knox was convicted of murder, spent more than two years in an Italian prison, won her freedom on appeal and returned to the United States.

• Both General Motors and Chrysler entered and emerged from bankruptcy.

• Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt’s teammate, won 21 races and three championships.

• Jeff Gordon, Earnhardt’s teammate, won four races and qualified for the Chase four times.

• Mark Martin, Earnhardt’s teammate, won five races and finished second to Johnson in the championships standings in 2009.

• Eleven Category 4 hurricanes formed in the Atlantic Ocean.

• Regan Smith won two Cup races and was credited with winning one.

• All told, 26 different Sprint Cup drivers have won at least one race since Earnhardt’s last visit to victory lane.

The intent here is not to be mean-spirited but simply to point out the obvious—that Earnhardt’s association with Hendrick Motorsports has not produced and may not produce the sort of results everyone anticipated when he made the move from family-founded Dale Earnhardt Inc.

It’s not for lack of effort. Those who speculate that Earnhardt may not be getting the same level of attention or resources as Johnson and Gordon, for example, simply don’t know team owner Rick Hendrick, who hired Earnhardt with the expectation of winning races and contending for titles. Hendrick is doing his utmost to hold up his end of the commitment.

So is Earnhardt, who celebrated his 37th birthday on Monday. The effort is there. The results haven’t been. It’s obvious from his postrace comments on Sunday that Earnhardt aches to win a race.

“It’s a goal of mine right now to just go out there and win,” Earnhardt said. “Man, if we could do that, that would really—no matter what happened in the Chase—I think we’d be real happy with our season.

“We’ve made some gains. I think we’ve learned as a team that we need to be better and we need to work hard in the offseason to try to present a better account of ourselves next season. But we’ve still got some racing left, and I’m working hard to try to give us a good opportunity, and the team is working hard, too.”

From a global standpoint, this nightmarish drought must end. Given the current economic climate, NASCAR racing needs Earnhardt to win a race every bit as much as he craves doing so.

But can and will that happen at Hendrick Motorsports? If it hasn’t happened in 123 races, is it ever going to happen?

Sometimes the pieces just don’t fit, no matter how many times and in how many ways you try to solve the puzzle.