Saturday Kansas Notebook

Saturday Kansas Notebook

Notebook Items:

·         Dale Earnhardt Jr. looks to break 10-year drought at 1.5-mile tracks

·         Keselowski is fast in race trim, too

·         Petty thrills military family with unexpected gift

Oct. 17, 2015

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

Dale Earnhardt Jr. looks to break 10-year drought at 1.5-mile tracks

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Back in 2000, Dale Earnhardt Jr. claimed the first of his 25 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories at Texas Motor Speedway, a 1.5-mile intermediate track.

In 2004, he took the checkered flag at Atlanta. A year later, Earnhardt won at Chicagoland. Those are Earnhardt’s only three victories at 1.5-mile speedways, and more than 10 years have passed since his last one.

This Sunday, Earnhardt comes to Kansas Speedway for the Hollywood Casino 400 (2:15 p.m. ET on NBC), where a win at an intermediate track would offset the rough 21st-place finish he had last Sunday at Charlotte, the first race in the Contender Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

But Earnhardt is at a loss to explain why he hasn’t been able to win at a 1.5-mile track in the last decade.

“I think, as a driver, I’m a little bit more consistent at the short tracks,” Earnhardt said. “And, obviously, the plate tracks we run pretty good at. I like the mile-and-a-halfs, and I run pretty good at them, (but) we’re always second, third, fourth or fifth. We’re never really the guy that can lock in the win.

“It’s just one of them things. I really can’t answer that because we’ve been one of the more consistent teams in the series over the last five or six years. We’ve maintained a good standing in the points throughout the regular season so we’re running well, finishing well, and we’re up front in a lot of these races. 

“But, overall, I think that I’m a better short-track driver than I am a mile-and-a-half driver — I don’t know.”

One thing that will play in Earnhardt’s favor on Sunday is his ability to take an aggressive approach. Currently 11th in the standings, 19 points out of the last transfer position into the Chase’s Eliminator 8 Round, Earnhardt and his No. 88 team need to stir the pot on Sunday.

“We ain’t got nothing to lose,” Earnhardt said. “We just got (to go) out there and run hard and try to win races and try to run up front. We’re not close enough to the top eight to sort of have a strategy. 

“We’re just going to go out there and race and see how it works out for us and try to win. We have two opportunities (Kansas and Talladega), and we’re a good enough team, so we’ll see how that works out.”

KESELOWSKI IS FAST IN RACE TRIM, TOO

A day after his pole-winning run at Kansas Speedway, Brad Keselowski was back on track — and back at the top of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series speed chart, this time with his No. 2 Team Penske Ford in race setup.

But Keselowski was quick to point out that neither Friday’s time trials nor Saturday’s first practice would be an accurate indicator of what would happen in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400, the fifth race in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

“The track is changing,” said Keselowski, whose fastest lap in Saturday’s first session was 189.960 mph. “Today it’s a lot cooler than it’s supposed to be (on Sunday). We know the grooves and all of that is going to change, so we have some speed.

“But we have to keep working on it, because you’re going to see comers and goers — and we don’t want to be a goer. We want to be one of those guys that comes to the front and stays in the front, so we’ve got to keep working.”

The work paid off in Saturday’s second practice session. Keselowski was second fastest to Jimmie Johnson in Happy Hour.

PETTY THRILLS MILITARY FAMILY WITH UNEXPECTED GIFT

When Eckrich, sponsor of the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford driven by Aric Almirola, invited Mike and Diana Dizmang-Espy to Price Chopper on Friday morning, the pretext was that the couple would receive free tickets to Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway as a token of appreciation for their service to our country.

But team owner and NASCAR Hall of Famer Richard Petty shocked the Kansas City, Kansas, military couple when he drove up in a new 2016 Ford Fusion and handed the keys to the Dizmang-Espys.

“I really don’t know what to say, but to thank everyone for these wonderful gifts,” said Mike Dizmang-Espy, an 11-year military veteran who was deployed to Iraq three times during his service.

“You can tell that Eckrich really put a lot of effort to make today special, and I can't thank everyone enough. We do sacrifice a lot in service, and it's just nice to know that people out there want to give back."