Dale Earnhardt Jr. Records Second Top-10 Qualifying Effort In Last Four Races

After going eight straight races without a top-10 qualifying effort, Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified in the top 10 for the second time in four races Friday at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California.

Earnhardt Jr. qualified ninth for Sunday’s Pepsi Max 400 after he said his team made smart changes and he switched his racing line – a result of watching Juan Pablo Montoya drive in the middle of the track instead of the bottom.

“I didn’t think (the good lap) was going to happen, but you throw it all out there and sometimes you get a little lucky,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I just knew if I ran the bottom I was going to be slow and slick and spinning the tires up off the corners. I just said, ‘We’ve got nothing to lose, I’m going to run around the middle and see what happens.’”

Earnhardt Jr. quickly added of his team and crew chief Lance McGrew: “They made the car better, too, now. I don’t want Lance getting pissed off at me! They made the car better, too.”

The No. 88 team wasn’t fast initially in practice – Earnhardt Jr. said the team was “struggling a little bit” – but made a host of changes in time for qualifying.

As for the rest of the weekend? Earnhardt Jr. said much work will have to be done tomorrow, when the team has two practice sessions to get the car ready for Sunday.

“Book’s kind of wide open now,” he said. “We don’t have a tried-and-true, failsafe package to put in the car.”

A good run might even change Earnhardt Jr.‘s attitude toward Auto Club Speedway, which ranks toward the bottom of his favorite tracks.

“I like it if I can run like that all the time – or a little bit better than that,” he said.