By Bob Pockrass
DOVER, Del. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. appeared to play defense for part of the FedEx 400 on Sunday at Dover International Speedway.
He wasn’t defending his position on the track as much as defending himself from wrecking his car. Earnhardt Jr., who finished 12th, was frustrated by chunks of tire rubber on the track that kept him from using the inside groove.
“The track is so banked that the marbles get thrown off the car and roll back down into the groove and we run over them and mash them into the hot, sticky rubber that’s being put down,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It just makes for a scary, scary entrance [to the corner] – just real loose.
“Everybody had the same problem. You had to dodge these patches. That’s just annoying. It never really used to do that until the last couple of tires. It’s a good tire, it’s just an anomaly with this surface and this banking.”
Earnhardt Jr. ended up finishing 12th as crew chief Steve Letarte tried a two-tire pit stop with 38 laps remaining to move from ninth to third. But he was one of the few drivers who couldn’t make two tires work and had to settle for 12th despite running in the top 10 for much of the final 80 laps of the race.
“Those kind of decisions, I leave in Steve’s hands,” Earnahrdt Jr. said. “I thought it was a great call. I tried to do the best I could.
“I wasn’t up on the wheel. The restarts were tough running on the bottom running through the marbles. Some guys could handle it. I couldn’t handle it.
“I didn’t do the best job on that restart. I lost a lot of spots. I was just real tight, and loose and tight and loose and it was just slick all over. Guys were getting around me with four tires. … We just got beat at the end pretty bad. I tried to hustle it but I couldn’t hustle it no more.”
The Hendrick Motorsports driver remained fourth in the standings, 52 points out of the lead and with a 40-point cushion on 11th.
His 12th-place finish tied his best finish at Dover in his last seven races at the track.
“Twelfth [today] is decent – when they take 12 for the championship, I think that’s a decent day,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We ran hard and I’ve just got to hustle a little bit more in some areas on restarts.
“Starting on the inside in the marbles, I was just nervous about driving up beside somebody and knocking myself out of the race. There was a lot of things I could have done differently, but it was a decent finish. … That’s the best I’ve run here in a long time.”
DOVER, Del. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. appeared to play defense for part of the FedEx 400 on Sunday at Dover International Speedway.
He wasn’t defending his position on the track as much as defending himself from wrecking his car. Earnhardt Jr., who finished 12th, was frustrated by chunks of tire rubber on the track that kept him from using the inside groove.
“The track is so banked that the marbles get thrown off the car and roll back down into the groove and we run over them and mash them into the hot, sticky rubber that’s being put down,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It just makes for a scary, scary entrance [to the corner] – just real loose.
“Everybody had the same problem. You had to dodge these patches. That’s just annoying. It never really used to do that until the last couple of tires. It’s a good tire, it’s just an anomaly with this surface and this banking.”
Earnhardt Jr. ended up finishing 12th as crew chief Steve Letarte tried a two-tire pit stop with 38 laps remaining to move from ninth to third. But he was one of the few drivers who couldn’t make two tires work and had to settle for 12th despite running in the top 10 for much of the final 80 laps of the race.
“Those kind of decisions, I leave in Steve’s hands,” Earnahrdt Jr. said. “I thought it was a great call. I tried to do the best I could.
“I wasn’t up on the wheel. The restarts were tough running on the bottom running through the marbles. Some guys could handle it. I couldn’t handle it.
“I didn’t do the best job on that restart. I lost a lot of spots. I was just real tight, and loose and tight and loose and it was just slick all over. Guys were getting around me with four tires. … We just got beat at the end pretty bad. I tried to hustle it but I couldn’t hustle it no more.”
The Hendrick Motorsports driver remained fourth in the standings, 52 points out of the lead and with a 40-point cushion on 11th.
His 12th-place finish tied his best finish at Dover in his last seven races at the track.
“Twelfth [today] is decent – when they take 12 for the championship, I think that’s a decent day,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We ran hard and I’ve just got to hustle a little bit more in some areas on restarts.
“Starting on the inside in the marbles, I was just nervous about driving up beside somebody and knocking myself out of the race. There was a lot of things I could have done differently, but it was a decent finish. … That’s the best I’ve run here in a long time.”
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