NASCAR WCUP: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Interview: Winning at Dover

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

September 23, 2001

DALE EARNHARDT Jr No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet Monte Carlo "We came here and qualified real well and I was surprised that we qualified so well. We had a good car and I didn't think we had that good a car. The guys we telling me that we had the fastest car out there but I didn't feel like it. During driver introductions Ricky Rudd and Dale Jarrett said that if I kept doing what I was doing yesterday I'd run away from them.

"As we went on we really were good at the beginning but as we went on at about 200 laps, the car just started chattering and bouncing up the race track. I don't know what happened whether the shock went away or what. The car got away from me and we tried to make a few adjustments. We went from a third place car to a fifth place car in the matter of about 75 laps.

"With about 125 laps to go we started making progress in getting the car better. We had a bad pit stop that put it back to 8th place. I was kinda worried about being able to get back up there but we were able to move back up to 3rd position under the green flag. That's when Ricky spun. It was really unfortunate for him. It cost him the race or a chance to win the race, of course. But we were able to capitalize on that. I don't think we would have been able to win the race if he hadn't spun. With the pit stop we had to make we could have made some changes but I don't know if I'd be able to pass him if I caught him. I think I could have run him down but catching and passing are two different things.

"With 53 laps to go we had a restart and we were able to pull away from guys got us a pretty big lead. We were able to kinda ride around and hold about a three second lead with about a 12 second lead when another caution came out.

"I was really worried that, of course that would bunch the field up, and I'd really have to race and drive hard to win the race and not make any mistakes. Apparently we had a better car than I thought and we were able to get away from them and win the race. The first five or six laps our car was just better than everyone else so we took advantage of that and tried to get the biggest lead we could and hold on to that.

"When everything did even out after five or six laps we had enough lead to hold 'em off.

Text provided by Nancy Wager

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