RELATED: Recap every Monster Energy Series win for Dale Jr.
For his final full-time season as a driver, NASCAR.com will offer an analytical preview on Dale Earnhardt Jr. ahead of every remaining Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race.
Race: Bojangles’ Southern 500
Date: 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 3 (NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio)
Previous five results at Darlington: 8th, 2nd, 9th, 17th, 14th
RELATED: Dale Jr.’s career stats at Darlington
Notable: Earnhardt could win at Darlington, even though he hasn’t yet in his career. He’s finished in the top 10 the last three times he competed at the track “Too Tough to Tame,” sitting out the 2016 race with concussion-like symptoms. For the 2017 throwback weekend, he is driving a scheme similar to the AC Delco look that he ran in the XFINITY Series in 1998 and 1999, when Earnhardt won 13 races and back-to-back XFINITY Series championships. That’s a pretty solid good luck charm.
Memorable: Not your usual highlight, Earnhardt’s test session at Darlington is important, nonetheless. With Charlotte neurosurgeon Dr. Jerry Petty on hand to monitor and test his responses, Junior first stepped into a race car on Dec. 7, 2016 after sitting out the final 18 races of the 2016 season with concussion-like symptoms. The test went well, and Junior was cleared to return to Monster Energy Series racing for the 2017 season.
Quotable: “I’m a little nervous for how difficult [this] weekend is going to be for us if we don’t have speed,” Earnhardt said on this week’s Dale Jr. Download podcast. “It’s hard enough as it is when the car’s good and you’re running well. I haven’t been to Darlington in a while where we’ve not just struggled, fought all night and ran mediocre.”