Junior discusses how he prevailed through Texas troubles for top-three finish
Play: NASCAR Fantasy Live
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Five hundred miles of racing isn't an easy feat. Tack on the intensity of a night race and a roller-coaster-like track like Texas Motor Speedway, and any driver would be wiped.
Just ask Dale Earnhardt Jr.
"It's a long race, and you get mentally prepared for it because it's pretty tough," Earnhardt said after finishing third in Saturday's race at the Lone Star track. "It feels almost like the (Coca-Cola) 600 in some ways. It's a slick old track, and the pace slows down. You work your guts out in there driving that car around there because the track is so slick, so it's a very physical race."
It was a mountainous 500 miles for Junior, as the No. 88 driver spent much of the night climbing through the field. A loose wheel in the beginning of the race forced Earnhardt to make another trip down pit road, putting him 30th for the restart at Lap 37 and forcing him to battle toward the front.
"It just seemed like everything was going against us," Earnhardt said. "And we were having trouble sort of beginning our race and getting into a rhythm, and we had to pass a lot of cars tonight."
And with NASCAR allowing the teams to police their own lug nuts, Earnhardt commended his crewmembers for their immediate honesty after pit stops, which helped them rebound quickly.
"If your tire guy done makes a mistake … and says ‘look, man, I made a mistake,' you catch it right then, right under the caution, you get it fixed, you get a chance to get back going," Earnhardt said. "Otherwise if you don't speak up, you get a bad vibration, the driver is going to come in, and he ain't going to knock his head against the fence out there when you think the tire is coming off and you lose a lap. Then you're in big trouble."
While caution flags gave teams a chance to come down pit road for adjustments and fixes, long green-flag runs were few and far between for drivers on Saturday night. For the No. 88 car, that proved to be yet another challenge in the Lone Star State.
"It was raining debris out there for a while, and we were needing some green‑flag runs to get some of the track position back that we were having trouble keeping," Earnhardt said.
Lengthier green flag stretches seemed to help the No. 88 ride find its groove especially during the last laps of the 500-mile Texas thriller. The final laps also saw Earnhardt impressively rally from 10th to fifth on the restart after a four-tire call with less than 25 laps to go, which spoke volumes for Junior.
"We seemed to have a good pattern of what was working for us and I think by the end of the race we had our car as good as we had it all night," Earnhardt said. "So that's a good job on the crew chief when the car is the best on the last run."
The No. 88 team has unloaded consistently strong cars this season, posting five of seven finishes inside the top six. The exceptions -- a 36th-place finish at Martinsville last weekend and a 43rd-place result at Phoenix -- were products of unfortunate crashes that sent the 88 to the garage. The initial speed of the cars gives Earnhardt confidence looking ahead to next weekend's race at Bristol Motor Speedway and beyond.
"We've had that speed all year and it's good to get a good finish in the bank because these last couple weeks have been pretty rough," Earnhardt said on pit road after the race. "We know what we're capable of -- me and Greg are just getting started here. We're right here on their heels, man."
But perhaps most important for the team's outlook is Earnhardt's mentality -- time and time again, he's said that he's having fun. And his enjoyment bore plentiful fruit for the No. 88 team's multiple-win season last year.
"Yeah, Jimmie is a six‑time champion -- He's got a hell of a résumé," Earnhardt said. "But I'm glad I'm where I'm at. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else because it doesn't look like them other cars are much fun to drive."
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