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TALLADEGA, Ala. -- In his mind, the best race Dale Earnhardt Jr. ever ran at Talladega Superspeedway won't be remembered for one simple reason.
"Because I didn't win," the Hendrick Motorsports driver said Friday during a day of practice on the 2.66-mile layout.
"I'm disappointed because of what happened in that race and what we were doing with the car and what the car was doing was amazing. It sucks because we were just 6 inches short of being declared the winner. … We've lost a lot of races here, but I can't even remember any of them that stand out like that."
A winner in the spring race at Talladega, Earnhardt Jr. returned in the fall needing another victory to keep his championship hopes alive. Although he led a race-high 61 laps, officials determined that Joey Logano (Team Penske) was the leader and thus the winner when the caution came out on a green-white-checkered restart that froze the field and ended the race.
Fifty-five. That's how many races the 41-year-old Earnhardt has lost on tracks where NASCAR requires the use of restrictor plates to keeps speeds in check.
However, 10 wins during a career that launched full-time in 2000, puts the son of a seven-time champion in the role of the favorite in plate races. That's twice as many as the soon-to-be-retired Tony Stewart and six-time champion Jimmie Johnson.
It's as much a statement about the car, Earnhardt said, as the driver. And what one does with it.
"If the car can't complete the passes that my mind mentally wants it to make, then I won't be as offensive and as confident in making those moves," he said.
"When I was driving the (Budweiser) car, around 2003, '04, '05 when we were winning all those races, I raced as hard in practice as I did in the race. …You kind of can set the tone early in the weekend with your competitors that this is who you're going to be out on the track; plus this is the car you've got."
It certainly helped that his father, Dale Earnhardt, was a master of plate racing, winning 13 times combined at Talladega and Daytona.
RELATED: See all of Earnhardt Sr.'s wins
"I learned a tremendous amount because I solely watched him whereas, someone else who grew up around the sport may not have focused as much on one particular driver," Earnhardt Jr. said.
Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards have combined to win the last four NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races heading into Sunday's GEICO 500 (1 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Fellow JGR teammate Denny Hamlin scored the win in the season-opener at Daytona, the most recent restrictor-plate race.
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"You can't make stupid mistakes," Edwards, still searching for his first plate-track win, said. "I learned that early on."
Caught up in an incident during one restrictor-plate race, Edwards said he told then-car owner Jack Roush afterward "something like, 'Man, there's just nothing I could do to miss the wreck.' "
At which point Roush gave his driver a piece of advice. "He said, 'You might want to go look at the tape because you drove right past Tony Stewart into the wreck and he somehow missed it.'
"I went back and watched and I learned from that," Edwards said. "You really have to be watching ahead and you have to pay attention."
That he's yet to win a restrictor-plate race is perplexing, considering the 36-year-old has 27 career victories.
"I don't need to see my stats at these places," he said, "because they're not good. … I'd like to get a superspeedway win. We've got great cars and we've got great teammates. I feel like I know how to run these races, but I just haven't been able to get the victory out of it. Hopefully we can do that."
Edwards isn't the only notable still searching for that first plate win. Former series champion Kurt Busch (2004) and Martin Truex Jr., who lost to Hamlin by a nose at Daytona, are as well.
"We've seen Dale over the years just really show everybody how it's done and that's because he has a really good understanding of the air, the way it works and knowing how to use that to his advantage," Truex Jr. (Furniture Row Racing) said. "For me … I've kind of had good races and bad and lately I feel like I've learned a lot more and gotten better at it, but there's still a lot to learn.
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