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closeFumes, caution flags prove to be the winning formula
Earnhardt Jr. says streak was no worry, but he's glad to be back in victory lane
DAVID POOLE
The Charlotte Observer
Sunday, Jun. 15, 2008
Officials look over the car of Patrick Carpentier (10) as Dale Earnhardt Jr. crosses the finish line ahead of Kasey Kahne (9), Matt Kenseth (17) and Brian Vickers (83) to win the LifeLock 400 win at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich., Sunday, June 15, 2008. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
BROOKLYN, Mich. - While his fans and pretty much the entire stock car racing world fretted over a winless streak that had stretched for more than two years, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was having a little trouble getting all worked up about it.
"As much as I wanted to win, I couldn't get away from just feeling really fortunate," Earnhardt Jr. said Sunday at Michigan International Speedway after ending that drought with a gut-wrenching, fuel-saving, plot-snarling win in the LifeLock 400.
"I've got a great team. ... My guys are so dedicated and everybody believes. I just felt so lucky."
After moving to Hendrick Motorsports before the start of the year, Earnhardt Jr. won the Budweiser Shootout and a Daytona 500 qualifying race in February. But he still hadn't won a points race since May 2006 at Richmond - 76 races ago. And even though he'd been running consistently, with 10 top-10 finishes in 14 races, the "When we he win?" question was growing louder with each passing week.
Earnhardt Jr., though, said it really hadn't gotten to him all that much until a week ago. That's when his JR Motorsports team had a celebration to mark Brad Keselowski's first career Nationwide Series win two nights earlier at Nashville Superspeedway.
"It reminded me of the joy I had forgotten," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I knew winning would make me happy, but I really forgot the look on everybody's face. ... I started to remember, watching Brad win. I was like, 'Man, I've got to get back to victory lane. I miss it so bad."
It didn't look much like he was going to get there for most of Sunday's race at the 2-mile Michigan track, either. Earnhardt Jr.'s No. 88 Chevrolet was hanging around in the top 10 most of the day, but Jimmie Johnson, Brian Vickers and Matt Kenseth all took turns looking like they had the car to beat before things got wacky.
Bobby Labonte's spin on Lap 146 brought the lead-lap cars in for fuel and tires. Earnhardt Jr. had been getting good mileage throughout the day, but at that point it seemed like a stretch to think that anybody could to the distance without stopping again.
When you haven't won in two years, though, sometimes a stretch is in order.
Crew chief Tony Eury Jr., criticized often by the "Junior Nation" of fans for his pit strategy during the winless streak, figured his car was six laps short. But another caution just after the restart on Lap 152, this one for Robby Gordon's brush with the wall, changed that equation.
With about 20 laps left and cars in front of Earnhardt Jr.'s already coming in, the crew chief told his driver to start trying to save fuel.
"Worst-case scenario, we finish 25th," Eury Jr. said. The way he figured it, that's where Earnhardt Jr. would finish whether he ran out of gas with a lap left or whether he came in for fuel that late in the race.
"So who cares? Go for it."
It's not the kind of gamble Eury Jr. takes often. He guessed it had been since a race here in 2005, when he was Michael Waltrip's crew chief, that he had tried such an all-out gamble. And that one failed.
Earnhardt Jr. took the lead on Lap 194 when David Ragan pitted for fuel, but lost it on the next lap to Jamie McMurray. McMurray was gambling, too, and for three laps he and Earnhardt Jr. battled for the lead in a way the eventual winner called "comical."
"It looked like we were racing like hell, but we were just pedaling by each other," Earnhardt Jr. said. He guessed he and McMurray were running at quarter-throttle - except when they'd pushed it to three-eighths when passing one another.
"It was funny."
It was decidedly not funny, though, when Sam Hornish Jr. spun on Lap 198 to bring out a caution, meaning the race would be extended beyond its scheduled 200 laps by a green-white-checkered.
"I was pretty sick," Eury Jr. said. "I was like, 'OK, we're done."
But Earnhardt Jr. drove down on the apron to shorten the laps under caution. He also mashed the gas a bit off each turn and then let the car coast. At one point, he surged forward so far he passed the pace car.
"I was getting a little greedy," Earnhardt Jr. said. NASCAR told Eury Jr. to tell his driver not to do that again.
When the green flew on Lap 202, Earnhardt Jr.'s car took off well. McMurray had pitted for fuel, so now it was Kasey Kahne in second, seeking his third win in four races.
Earnhardt Jr. said his car "stumbled" as it came to the white flag, but he reckoned there was enough gas to get back around again if he'd needed it.
He did not. Patrick Carpentier and Waltrip got together behind the leaders, and the yellow flew to effectively end the race.
All Earnhardt Jr. had to do was make it back around under power to the checkered flag, which he did easily.
He shut his car off and coasted to victory. He said it might have started back up for him to drive it to victory lane, but "it would be a much better story" to have his team push him there.
"I know exactly what they're going to say," Earnhardt Jr. said of the inevitable discussion of how things played out. "But to hell with it.
"My fans are happy and I am happy for them. The other half are going to tear this apart on how we won this race. But I got the trophy and I got to the points and I got to see my team and my owner and my family tonight as happy as they have been in a long time."
Nothing quite like a little booster shot of joy.