Dale Earnhardt Jr. confident he can win Talladega to avoid Chase elimination

On the brink of Chase for the Sprint Cup elimination, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will need to win on his best track following a following a sub-par finish Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

Earnhardt finished 21st in the Hollywood Casino 400, falling 31 points behind Martin Truex Jr. for the final transfer position into the third round of NASCAR’s playoffs. The lowest four ranked drivers without a victory will be eliminated from the 12-driver Chase field following the Oct. 25 race at Talladega.

But while most drivers dread the 2.66-mile Alabama track where multi-car crashes are the norm, Earnhardt is embracing the opportunity ahead. And why wouldn’t he? After all, Earnhardt owns six Talladega victories, including the May race where he led a race-high 67 laps.

”I wouldn’t rather be going anywhere else than Talladega for the next race if we need a win -- even Daytona, Earnhardt said. “I think we can go to Talladega and do the job. There is a little more room there to be aggressive and make the moves you need to make.

“I got the car. That car won a (Daytona 500 qualifying race), ran third in the 500 and won Talladega and won (the July) Daytona. That is a good enough car. I wouldn’t want to be going anywhere else if it’s a win-and-you-are-in kind of deal.”

The predicament Earnhardt finds himself in of needing win is due to consecutive poor results to begin the three-race Round 2. He finished 28th last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway and various maladies led to Earnhardt finishing 21st at Kansas.

Among the issues Sunday was a persistent vibration so pronounced it required an unscheduled green flag pit stop. That cost Earnhardt two laps to the leaders, a deficit he could never overcome.

Although wheels shaking have been a dilemma that’s regularly hampered the No. 88 throughout the season, Earnhardt was among several drivers -- including Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski -- who dealt with similar problems.

“We had a lot of wheels that were spinning inside the tire and that throws the weights off and makes the car shake pretty bad,” Earnhardt said. “It doesn’t really bother the balance really, but it just annoys you. We did have a real bad vibration that was a little different kind of vibration where it might have been a loose wheel.”

Earnhardt contends that like Charlotte, he had a car fast enough to finish in the top 10. Yet just as contact with Carl Edwards and later hitting the wall undid his bid at Charlotte, Earnhardt never got a chance to showcase his car’s capability at Kansas.

But potential hasn’t equated to results and the reality is Earnhardt goes into Talladega in a precarious spot. Anything short of a win and he will again be a Round 2 elimination for the second straight year.

“When you look at all the tracks where would myself, and I’m sure where my fans, think we’ve got a shot to win -- where else would we want to be going besides Talladega?” Earnhardt said. “Looking forward to it. We have a car that can win there. We will go there and try to do the job. It’s all we can do.”