Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Making 2011 NASCAR Chase ‘Would Save Me A Lot Of S--t’

With three races remaining in NASCAR’s regular season, the only person standing between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and a clinched Chase spot (as of now) is Clint Bowyer.

Earnhardt Jr., ninth in the Sprint Cup Series standings, is 30 points ahead of 11th-place Bowyer. If he can gain 17 more positions on Bowyer over the next two races, he’ll clinch a Chase spot based on tiebreakers over Bowyer. All he’d have to do is start his engine at Richmond to be in the Chase.

Eight positions here, nine positions there? Junior Nation fans hope it can be done, and their driver certainly does, too.

“Man, that’d be really, really good if we can get that done before Richmond,” he said Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway. “It’s a lot of pressure to go into that last race and you’re sort of on the verge, on the edge. It takes away a bit of your focus on that specific race and your ability to really go out there and try to win it. ... So I’d love to get it out of the way early.”

That said, Earnhardt Jr. won’t say it’s a specific goal. The objective for Bristol and Atlanta – and ultimately Richmond – remains “to keep trying to drive the best we can and see what happens.”

Making the Chase won’t do anything for Earnhardt Jr. from a personal standpoint, he said; it’s strictly professional. The only benefit he sees to making the Chase on a personal level is that if he misses it, “I’ll probably catch a lot of shit about it.”

“It would save me a lot of shit if I make the Chase,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s the only thing, personally, that I have to worry about.”