Notebook: Earnhardt craves a win before Richmond

Notebook: Earnhardt craves a win before Richmond

(August 26, 2011)

BRISTOL, Tenn.—If Dale Earnhardt Jr. had his way, the Sprint Cup winless streak that reached 116 races last Sunday at Michigan would end before he races at Richmond on Sept. 10 with a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup on the line.

 “That would be really, really, really good, if we could get that done before Richmond, because it’s a lot of pressure to go into that last race sort of on the verge, on the edge,” Earnhardt said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

 Basically, Earnhardt would rather go to Richmond with a race win in hand and possible avenue to the Chase via NASCAR’s new wild-card provision—open to the two drivers in positions 11-20 in the standings who have the most victories—rather than having to make the top 10 on points alone.

 “It’s really, really a lot of pressure and takes away a bit of your focus from that specific race and your ability to go out there and really try and win it,” Earnhardt said. “You tend to be a little more cautious than you typically would be in any other situation.

 “So I would love to get it out of the way early, but we’re just going to keep trying to do what we can do and control our racecar and drive the best we can and see what happens.”

 Earnhardt hasn’t been to victory lane in the Cup series since June 15, 2008, at Michigan in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports.

 Keselowski stays smart in skipping Nationwide race

 Brad Keselowski, who has been performing smartly on the racetrack, made another smart move this weekend when he decided to skip Friday night’s Food City 250 Nationwide Series race at Bristol.

 Keselowski is recuperating from a broken left ankle, an injury he sustained in a wreck during an Aug. 3 test session at Road Atlanta. Since then, he has finished first, second and third at successive Sprint Cup races at Pocono, Watkins Glen and Michigan.

 Since the accident, he has not raced in the Nationwide Series, as much as that decision has pained him. After ceding his seat to Penske Racing teammate Kurt Busch at Watkins Glen and to former Formula One champion Jacques Villeneuve at Montreal, Keselowski was resigned to watching Parker Kligerman drive his No. 22 Dodge at Bristol.

 “If I had to make the decision completely coming off of my mind and my heart, I would have never got out of (the car),” Keselowski told Sporting News on Friday. “I would have run every race. Obviously, there’s a bigger picture than that. This racetrack is a place where you can take a really jarring hit, and the odds of doing so are pretty high.

 “We certainly don’t want to risk that. That would be potentially a catastrophe. I would like to be back in (the Nationwide Series) next week. We’ll just have to wait and see. From a discipline perspective, it was very, very tough. I relied on people like (owner) Roger (Penske) to help me out with those decisions and he certainly did.”

 Keselowski initially offered his ride at Bristol to Busch, who had won in the No. 22 car at the Glen. Busch, like Keselowski, had the big picture in mind.

 “I turned it down,” Busch said. “I thought the best opportunity to get our Cup program right where it needed to be was to just focus 100 percent on it.”

 Gordon has no problem with Patrick in Daytona 500

 If Danica Patrick chooses to make her Sprint Cup debut in NASCAR’s biggest race, Jeff Gordon, for one, won’t have a problem with it.

 In all likelihood—given her well-honed marketing instincts—Patrick will choose the 2012 Daytona 500 to launch her Cup career. Three of Patrick’s 20 Nationwide Series starts have come at Daytona. Most recently, on July 1 there, she ran up front and led 13 laps before finishing 10th.

 Accordingly, Gordon says he won’t be a dissenting voice, should Patrick choose to enter the Daytona 500.

 “It doesn’t matter to me,” Gordon said Friday. “She did pretty well in the Nationwide race. To me, that was a testament of what she is capable of doing. … I mean, she’s racing the Indianapolis 500, and, to me, that’s pretty challenging.

 “So I think that, if that’s where they want to make her debut, I wouldn’t have any heartache against it because of the tracks that she’s raced at in the Nationwide Series. If you’ve never raced at a superspeedway, especially with the tandem drafting we have now—if you’d never done that before and never been on a superspeedway before, then I might question it.

 “But that’s not the case for her.”

 Patrick announced Thursday she will run a full Nationwide schedule next year, along with a limited number of Cup races. Her Cup schedule has not been set.

 Patrick finds a large support group in NASCAR

 Patrick hasn’t lacked for relevant advice in the early stages of her NASCAR career, as she has much in common with her current and future owners.

 She has fame and celebrity in common with Dale Earnhardt Jr., who owns the Nationwide Series team for which she will drive next season. She shares Midwestern upbringing and Indy car roots with Tony Stewart, who will field cars for her at the Sprint Cup level in 2012.

 “Oddly enough, I’ve always driven for drivers, too. Bobby (Rahal), Michael (Andretti), Dale, Tony. I’ve got a track record of driving for drivers,” she told Sporting News. “I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because they have a knack for running good teams, because they’ve been there and they’ve been right in the middle of it.”

 She has sought advice from Earnhardt and Stewart in the two years she has run a partial schedule. She ticked off five other names before joking she should stop to make sure she didn’t forget anybody. Those names: Kevin Harvick, Aric Almirola, Justin Allgaier, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Elliott Sadler.

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service