As the post-race interview wound down on Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. stood up from his seat on the pit road wall and prepared to head home.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Has Passed A Lot Of Damn Cars This Year
Was there anything else he wanted to add?
“Just our ability to pass cars, man!” he said. “We’ve had to have passed at least twice as many cars as anybody else in this series this year.”
Really? Sure, Earnhardt Jr. had been starting far back in the field thanks to disappointing qualifying results. But was he really passing more cars than anyone?
Well, NASCAR has stats on that sort of thing these days, so I looked up Earnhardt Jr.‘s claim.
And guess what? He was right; he has passed more cars than anyone this year.
Earnhardt Jr. has made a series-leading 946 green-flag passes this year, including a series-best 528 “quality passes” (which are described as passes made on a top-15 car under the green flag).
He leads the “quality passes” category by 42 over Clint Bowyer – which seems like a lot for so early in the season. And he’s been passed 860 times, which gives him a pass differential of 86 (that’s second to only Kevin Harvick in the Sprint Cup Series).
"Look at where we've qualified and where we've been finishing," Earnhardt Jr. said. "There ought to be some kind of award for that. They used to have that, like the 'hard charger' or some shit, way back in the day."
NASCAR actually does still have an award based on improving positions, called the “O’Reilly Auto Parts Award.” But Earnhardt Jr. isn’t eligible for that award, since Hendrick Motorsports doesn’t participate in that contingency program (probably because it has a deal with Carquest).
Still, award or not, Earnhardt Jr. is making more passes than any other driver so far this season.
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