One of the biggest criticisms of Dale Earnhardt Jr. during the course of his lengthy slump has been his perceived lack of aggressiveness.
Is Dale Earnhardt Jr. Aggressive Enough? He Answers The Question
Why doesn’t Dale Jr. get up on the wheel and drive that thing? Why doesn’t he race harder?
And at Talladega, a place that serves as the capital of Junior Nation, Earnhardt Jr. said even those in his inner circle have urged him to be more aggressive.
His answer to those who would suggest he isn’t aggressive enough? When the cars aren’t good, it’s not that easy.
“You can’t be aggressive when you’re going backward; hell, you’re just going to piss everybody off,” he said, addressing a group of reporters outside his hauler on Friday. “You can’t be aggressive when you’re sitting there trying to hang on to your ass all day running 25th.
“When the car’s good, I can do that, and I’m willing to do that. I get fired up and see opportunities and see the win standing there in front of me, and I can get aggressive. Every driver is that way when they smell that opportunity.”
Earnhardt Jr. said since “beating on everybody” when the car isn’t running well is a recipe for making enemies, the only thing to do is “ride it out until your shit turns around and you get going.”
So does Earnhardt Jr. believe he is being more aggressive this year? It depends on the car and the day, he said. When he gets a good car, “it’s easy to look cool and drive on the edge and get everybody up on their feet,” he said.
If not, he said with a deep sigh, the team’s strategy is to maintain track position on bad days until they can fix it on the next stop. Or the next one.
"When you're just hanging on and trying not to wreck and stay out of everybody's way, it's difficult to be aggressive and wild and flashy or whatever," he said.
Earnhardt Jr. said his team’s eighth-place finish at Texas showed the No. 88 team that they are capable of running up front at 1.5-mile intermediate tracks – something that hasn’t been the norm over the past two seasons.
“We see that we can get there,” he said. “That’s not everything, but for them guys to see that be able to happen helps them a lot.”
For being seventh in points, Earnhardt Jr. seems to be enjoying somewhat of a quiet season. Is it possible that the sport’s most popular driver could be flying under the radar (at least by his standards)?
Earnhardt Jr. said he doesn’t feel much pressure from the fans or media at the moment.
“I don’t know that we’re under the radar, but we’re definitely not in the center of it,” he said. “It’s nice, too, to not have that kind of pressure on you. Because people tend to make more mistakes when they’re being watched all the time –that’s the same for the whole team.
“When we get to feeling like we’re being studied and looked at very hard, it’s easy to make mistakes under that kind of pressure.”
Perhaps the key to Earnhardt Jr.‘s success this year involves something else: Facial hair.
The Unabomber-esque beard Earnhardt Jr. had for all of this year is now gone, the product of two upcoming commercial shoots.
“You know, had to get back into shape,” he said of the wild facial hair. “It was getting a little bit warm, too.”
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