NASCAR WCUP: Another Top Ten for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

July 23, 2001

Ninth Place Run for Earnhardt Jr. as Jarrett tops Gordon and Rudd

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Dale Jarrett and Jeff Gordon came into Sunday’s New England 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway tied for the lead in Winston Cup points, trailed closely by Ricky Rudd in third. As if the trio were out to prove that they are not willing to let any other drivers get into their battle for the 2001 Winston Cup title, they dominated the race, with Jarrett winning, followed by Gordon and Rudd across the finish line. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the Budweiser team had a day of hard knocks and hard luck, but managed to fight and claw to a ninth place finish. The finish allowed them to maintain their eighth place position in points. It is the eighth top-10 finish of the season (and the 10th top-11) for the team.

The Key Moment: Starting 29th on a track which makes it difficult to pass, Dale Jr. sliced and diced through the pack, making his way into the top 10 in only 80 laps. Following a lap 94 restart after a yellow flag had bunched the field, Dale Jr. was sandwiched in a three-wide crunch as he and Kevin Harvick tried to make their way around the lapped car of Jason Leffler. The contact, which was followed a few laps later by more metal-banging when Todd Bodine ran into the Bud car, damaged the front grill of the car and bent the right front fender. The resulting damage caused the handling of the car to suffer, and also caused the engine to overheat. The team made two long pit stops to correct the overheating problems on laps 165 and 166, which dropped them to 26th place, the last car on the lead lap. The remaining 135 laps of the race saw the team scrap to regain their spot near the front of the field. By the finish, they had gained 17 spots to come home in ninth. It is a career best finish for Dale Jr. and the team in four starts at NHIS.

Dale Jr’s Quotes: “Ninth place is a good comeback. We passed a lot of cars on a track that is hard to pass on. The car was great early in the race, but once I bent the nose, it never turned quite as well again. We were able to run the same lap times as the leaders, but were never able to do it consistently enough to get in a position to challenge them.”

NHIS had applied a sealer to the track surface prior to the race weekend, attempting to increase the traction in the corners and make the racing more exciting.

“The sealer tore up on the surface almost immediately. The first 150 laps were decent, but the track became one-groove-only after that. They had three other races here this weekend, so even at the start of our race you could see the areas that had started to come up. There were patches in the corners that made those areas undriveable. It looked like someone had taken wide strips of rubber and just glued it to the track. You had to straddle those areas with the car: you either had to be above or below it if you wanted to hang on.”

Text provided by Jade Gurss

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