Dale Earnhardt Jr.: At the end of a plate race, greed is good .

Dale Earnhardt Jr.: At the end of a plate race, greed is good . . . sometimes

July 5, 2012

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The ideal situation at the end of restrictor-plate race, says Dale Earnhardt Jr., is to pair up with a teammate you can trust.

Barring that, you've got to be downright piggish, says the driver of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

"I've won races working with a teammate before," said Earnhardt, who will try to win his second Coke Zero 400 on Saturday night. "I've won races being the most selfish guy out there. It just depends on what you need to do and what is happening and who is around.

"If you've got an opportunity at the end of the race . . . if your teammate happens to be the guy that you're working with, that's the best-case scenario, because we have seen that work a lot of times here."

Sometimes, however, a teammate simply isn't available.

"If (hooking up with a teammate) doesn't look like that's going to happen, or that's not an option or not going to materialize for you, you need to really be as selfish as you can be," Earnhardt said Thursday before NASCAR Sprint Cup practice at Daytona International Speedway. "Just be the biggest jerk you can be out there, and that's the way it's got to be if you want to get to Victory Lane.

"You ain't going to do it by expecting favors. You just have to go out there and take it from people, and if you can get to Victory Lane, you don't have to worry about having somebody tell you that was stupid. It is tough. That's not my mentality.

"I don't think of myself as a jerk, but you kind of have to be one if you want to win at the end of these races -- more times than not."

BACK PROBLEMS MEAN MINIMAL TRACK TIME FOR HAMLIN

Rather than risk injury in Sprint Cup practice or in a Nationwide race, Denny Hamlin will confine his on-track activity to Friday's Cup qualifying and Saturday's Coke Zero 400.

Hamlin has been suffering from back problems this week after racing at bumpy Kentucky Speedway last Saturday night.

"There's a few things," Hamlin said of his back issues. "There's some torn discs, some bulging discs -- just a lot of different things that happened over time. It's just gotten progressively worse. Kentucky's not the smoothest of racetracks we've gone to with our progressive setups these days. Evidently it took its toll.

"The next day it just got real tight by the end of the day, and then I sat down for dinner and couldn't get up. I have a history of back spasms now for probably four years, and it just flared up again. This is about as bad as it was at its worst in 2008 or so. I'm just now starting to get mobile again and being able to get around."

Hamlin is an avid golfer and basketball player but said the back problems pre-date his involvement in those sports. He withdrew from Friday night's Subway Jalapeno 250 earlier this week and opted out of the two Cup practice sessions on Thursday.

Nevertheless, Hamlin won't have a relief driver standing by for Saturday's race.

"I don't plan on having a relief driver," Hamlin told the NASCAR Wire Service. "If something happened, and I didn't feel well, there'd be somebody around that could help, but I don't plan on having one. I could probably (practice) today, if I had to, but of course it's not race day, and I've got two more days before I really have to get in 'go.' "

Hamlin just signed a contract extension with Joe Gibbs Racing and said he has provisions in his contract that cover potential medical issues.

"As far as insuring a problem like this, we have stuff in place to help out when stuff like this happens," Hamlin said.

NEW DASH 4 CASH FORMAT ADDS EXCITEMENT

Full-time Nationwide Series drivers have a lot on line in Friday night's Subway Jalapeno 250 at Daytona.

In addition to championship points and a trophy, drivers eligible for the Nationwide championship will be attempting to qualify for the first Dash 4 Cash race, which takes place the following weekend at New Hampshire.

In Friday's race, the top four finishers who have elected to run for the Nationwide title will race for $100,000 in the July 14 F.W. Webb 200 at New Hampshire. The Dash 4 Cash winner at Loudon will join the next three finishers among Nationwide regulars in competing for a $100,000 bonus in the July 22 STP 300 at Chicagoland.

That format will continue through for four straight races, through the July 28 Indy 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Aug. 4 U.S. Cellular 250 at Iowa Speedway. If one eligible driver wins the first three Dash 4 Cash awards and wins the race at Iowa, Nationwide will kick in an extra $600,000, bringing the total one driver could win to $1 million.

According to Austin Dillon, second in the Nationwide standings, holding the qualifier at a restrictor-plate superspeedway brings a lot of drivers into the mix.

"This is a crazy place to start it for a qualifier, because I think it opens a lot of doors for people to get in there and have a shot at that big money coming to New Hampshire," Dillon said. "Any time there's big money on the table, crazy things happen, so it'll be exciting come New Hampshire."

HARVICK SCOFFS AT MANDATORY CAUTIONS

Last weekend at Kentucky, track owner Bruton Smith suggested that NASCAR might want to call mandatory cautions to bunch the fields.

Driver Kevin Harvick's dismissive reaction? "Same guy ruined Bristol," Harvick said.

Despite the efforts of Smith, the chairman and CEO of Speedway Motorsports Inc., to change the nature of racing at Bristol in the face of declining attendance at the high-banked .533-mile short track, Harvick isn't optimistic.

"Originally, it was great," Harvick said of the racetrack before its reconfiguration in 2007. "It was our most popular race."

The racing hasn't been the same at Bristol since then, and when the March event played to grandstands that were roughly half-full, Smith vowed to restore the track to its former glory. In late April, the progressive banking in the outside groove was ground down to promote racing in closer quarters.

Drivers Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton tested Goodyear tires at the track in June and reported that the grinding had achieved the desired effect.

"You've definitely lost the top groove," Stewart said after the test. ". . . There's going to be less room to race."

Harvick, who hasn't seen the track since the grinding, remained dubious.

"It's not going back to anything," he opined. "All I've heard is that they've polished one lane."

The proof, of course, will come Aug. 25 in Bristol's popular night race.