Back when Dale Earnhardt Jr. was winning races all the time, he’d be driving along in the top five and notice the competition around him. And if there happened to be a so-so driver who was having a better-than-average day, Earnhardt Jr. would race the guy harder.
At Michigan, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Surprised At How Other NASCAR Drivers Have Raced Him This Season
“You’re like, ‘Man, I don’t want to get beat by you. You don’t typically out-run me, so I don’t want to get beat by you today,’” Earnhardt Jr. said.
So when the Hendrick Motorports driver began to experience a career rejuvenation this season, he expected similar treatment from the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers who are regulars to running up front.
"(I thought) it'd take awhile for the guys who have been up there for the last several years to get used to seeing me around up there," Earnhardt Jr. said Friday. "But it seems to be working out fine."
That was a somewhat surprising to Earnhardt Jr., because even during his struggles last season, the driver held the view that certain drivers just shouldn’t beat him. He assumed his competitors felt the same way.
“You just have guys that you look at when you’re out there and go, ‘I should be out-running you,’” he said. “Even last year, there’s teams that I knew should kick my ass and teams I knew I should be out-running – and you get upset when you don’t out-run those guys.”
So how many more drivers does Earnhardt Jr. feel he should be beating than he did last year? A reporter asked him.
“I don’t know,” the driver said with a smile. “More.”
And that’s exactly what the No. 88 team has been doing. Earnhardt Jr. is third in Sprint Cup Series points, just 10 behind leader Carl Edwards.
That consistency led him to say that 2011 is already “one of the best years I’ve ever had.”
“I don’t remember, in my career as a driver, showing up to the racetrack and feeling like I was top-10 every single weekend – which we’ve done that every weekend this year,” he said. “I was never able to do that before, for whatever reason.
“When I had some really, really good cars back in the first half of the previous decade, I was really young and made a lot of mistakes. Now I feel like I’m a smarter driver, and this is a great opportunity.”
Is a win coming soon? Michigan marks three years since Earnhardt Jr.'s last Sprint Cup victory, but the driver said he remains focused on having a good season overall.
"I don't dwell on it at all, really," he said. "...Last year and the year before that, I wasn't competitive enough to even worry about it. I was more concerned with trying to get right, trying to get better and trying to be more competitive. I wasn't even thinking about trying to win races.
"I know you don't get a lot of second chances in this sport, and I could have easily been written off the last couple years. Thankful I've been able to turn it around and still show I have good reason to be in this sport."
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