Dale Earnhardt Jr. is riding a 100-race winless streak and would like nothing better than to snap it this weekend at his favorite track – Talladega Superspeedway.
But there’s one small problem with that. To win at Talladega, a driver likely will have to perfect the art of racing in a two-car draft. And Earnhardt Jr. does not like the two-car draft.
The new style of restrictor-plate racing emerged at the end of the Talladega races the last two years but could be used throughout the entire race Sunday much in the same way it was during the season-opening Daytona 500.
So Earnhardt Jr. is going to have adapt if he wants to win at Talladega, where he has five career victories, including four in a row from 2001-03.
“I don't particularly like that style of racing,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I'd rather have control of just what I've got to do and having to have responsibility for someone else is a little bit more than I care to deal with. But, that is the way the racing is.”
Earnhardt Jr. said he wasn’t sure if the two-car draft will be as pronounced at Talladega as it was at Daytona, but obviously it will play a big role.
“I really don’t know what Talladega is going to be like because the asphalt is worn just a little bit and it’s not quite as grippy as the new asphalt at Daytona after a year or two,” Earnhardt Jr. said.
“But I want to be in control of my own destiny and I don’t want to have to worry about wrecking another driver while I’m pushing him around the race track. So I hope that’s not the kind of racing we have. But whatever you’ve got to do to win, is what you’ve got to do.”
After the Daytona 500, Earnhardt Jr. said he hoped NASCAR would do some testing to create a better racing package for Daytona and Talladega.
NASCAR didn’t hold any tests. Teams will use the same cooling system rules that were put in place in the week leading up to the Daytona 500 and will have a restrictor plate with slightly smaller holes (1/64th-inch less in diameter) than they had at Daytona. The configuration, coupled with new pavement at Daytona, turned the Daytona 500 into a race that featured drivers racing in two-car tandems.
It appears that NASCAR officials are content with the two-car draft, which requires drafting partners to swap positions often to keep their cars from overheating.
“Seventy-four lead changes, dramatic racing all the way through, although it looked a little bit different, the competition level went up,” NASCAR Chairman Brian France said of the two-car draft. “We look at a lot of things to come to that, but we like it.
“It's different. But, generally speaking, if competition goes up, the races are exciting, we're going to like it.”
Which means that Earnhardt Jr. must learn to use the two-car draft to be in contention at Talladega. He appeared to be in position to make a late run at Daytona but was involved in an accident in the waning laps.
“We hadn’t even run the length of a qualifying race and we had done tore out half the field it seemed like,” Earnhardt Jr. said after the Daytona 500. “It’s just this type of racing.
“It’s not very good because I can’t see where I’m going when I’m pushing somebody. … We don’t need to be shoving each other all the way around the race track. You can make cars where they don’t have to do that.”
It doesn’t matter that Earnhardt Jr.’s winless streak has hit 100 races. Or that he has not won a Cup restrictor-plate points race in his last 12 starts.
Earnhardt Jr. has done well enough – second in the 2010 Daytona 500, winner of the Nationwide race at Daytona last summer – to know he can still get it done at those tracks.
But he just wishes that NASCAR would work on getting rid of the two-car draft by making the cars unstable, either through higher speeds or aerodynamic rules.
“We can do a little bit better, and I think NASCAR understands,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Hopefully we’ll make some things happen, put some testing together to get a little bit better package.”
