Corvette Racing and the Earnhardt's

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PushRodV8

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Cool little article about when Dale Sr and Jr raced the Daytona Rolex 24. I didn't know Dale wanted to eventually race at Le Mans. This article was posted on Corvette Racing's facebook page.

http://aarn.com/?p=1641

edit: just realized I spelled Earnhardt wrong. How dare I
 
Despite their newness to Sports Car Racing, the Earnhardts impressed everyone with their interest in the race and their driving talents. And Dale Sr. so enjoyed his experience that he got an OK from Corvette Racing Program Manager Doug Fehan to acquire the C5-Rs from General Motors with the idea of running them out of Dale Earnhardt Inc. at the world-famous 24-hour race in France.

Damn, that would've been amazing.

On a side note, I wish NASCAR and IndyCar would take off that week to allow for some cross-pollination again.
 
I agree @FLRacingFan. I would love to see multiple NASCAR drivers run Le Mans. We have a good lineup at the Rolex 24 but Le Mans is the ultimate endurance race. The only modern NASCAR drivers I know of that raced at Le Mans is Brian Vickers and Michael Waltrip. Plus Michael Waltrip raced the Spa 24 Hours and finished 3rd in class and 5th overall. Our guys can race on road that's a given.

I'm pretty sure Dale Jr mentioned that he would be interested in running some sports cars but now that he is focused 100% on NASCAR I doubt we will see it anytime soon.
 
I agree @FLRacingFan. I would love to see multiple NASCAR drivers run Le Mans. We have a good lineup at the Rolex 24 but Le Mans is the ultimate endurance race. The only modern NASCAR drivers I know of that raced at Le Mans is Brian Vickers and Michael Waltrip. Plus Michael Waltrip raced the Spa 24 Hours and finished 3rd in class and 5th overall. Our guys can race on road that's a given.

I'm pretty sure Dale Jr mentioned that he would be interested in running some sports cars but now that he is focused 100% on NASCAR I doubt we will see it anytime soon.
There's no doubt in my mind we would see a good bit of that if the schedule were even a little bit lighter (only two or three bye weeks a year is pretty crazy anyways). Jimmie Johnson has even said as much:

Forbes: Any post-NASCAR career plans in mind or do you just want to kick back and relax?

Johnson: I can’t relax. It’s not in my DNA. I’ll still be racing, and I have goals to race sports car endurance vehicles. The first stage of retirement for me would be to retire from full-time Sprint Cup action; 39 races in 41 weeks is a long year. If I can scale back to a 20 to 25 race schedule, and race a bunch of different, cool vehicles at events around the world, I could do that for another 10 years easily.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbad...e-a-seventh-cup-title-and-retirement-plans/2/

And now that Chip Ganassi Racing is going to start fielding the factory Ford GTE team starting in 2016 guys like McMurray and Larson would undoubtedly be over there too. It'd be pretty sweet.
 
I remember watching the race. Earnhardt Sr was fast in the wet which surprised me. In an interview he pointed out that he and Andy (the older divers) preserved the car while Jr and Kelly (the younger drivers) used it up. Jr continued running sports cars until he got injured which affected his NASCAR performance (that incident caused teams to restrict driver involvement in other series).
 
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