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Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard team notched their second top-three finish in as many weeks with a third-place effort at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The No. 88 car was stout all weekend long, qualifying second and hovering in the top-10 practice speeds. When the green flag dropped, Earnhardt took the lead from teammate and pole-sitter Jeff Gordon. By Lap 9, Earnhardt had a four-and-a-half second lead over the rest of the field. The No. 88 Chevy led the field until the first caution flag flew on Lap 38 for debris. The team pitted for four tires, and Earnhardt reclaimed the lead in the battle off of pit road. Earnhardt led again until Lap 60, when his car became loose. Pitting again on Lap 92, crew chief Tony Eury Jr. called for air pressure adjustments because the spring rate had changed over the course of the first 90 laps of the race. He asked Earnhardt to be patient and promised to make appropriate changes based on Earnhardt's feedback. By Lap 100, the handling of the car wasn't getting any better, and Earnhardt had his hands full. He said he was so loose he was saving the car on each corner from spinning out. Eury said he would make a wedge adjustment on the next stop. By Lap 165, Earnhardt had dropped to eighth position with an ill-handling car. With the help of Eury's adjustments and the power of the No. 88 pit crew's 12-second stops, Earnhardt crept back up the scoring tower and into the top four in the closing laps. He passed Greg Biffle to take the third position with two laps to go in the event. All in all, Earnhardt led 62 laps and finished third, which boosted him four more positions in the standings. Now four races into the season, Earnhardt sits sixth in the driver standings. "We started off awesome," Earnhardt said after the race. "The car was real fast. The tires, you know, have spring rates. We went softer and softer as the day went. That was the wrong thing to do. We had to keep adjusting on the car to tighten it up. The thing was just out of control after a few laps. I wasn't as bad as most of them, I don't reckon. That was interesting today to be out there. I do say that I'm glad that's over with." QUOTING EARNHARDT : (EXCERPTS FROM THE POST-RACE PRESS CONFERENCE): DALE EARNHARDT, JR. (ON THE TIRE CONDITIONS): "Well, I'll say that Goodyear Tire Company makes good racing tires. They make a safe tire. You know, there's a lot of technology goes into making them tires, and I give them a lot of credit. I mean, you know, it's a reputation risk just to be in this sport as a company like that. They do a good job. This was just a bad combination, this tire at this track. Just a poor combination. I know the tire we used to run would wear into the cords, but you could still run hard on it. It wasn't dangerous. You would run into the cords and run like that for 10 laps. That was a pretty good tire. Even though it was on a cord, you could still run it for a while, get to the next pit stop." EARNHARDT (ON COMMUNICATION WITH TONY EURY JR.): "You sort of figure what your game plan is as far as you want to go stiffer on the right front or let the right front fall out from under it as the race goes. They don't make a tire that's exactly the same as every other tire, so you can't have the same exact set every set. They're going to change some. So what the crew chiefs do is they put them in a sequence, which they'll go a certain way until the driver complains, then they make them flip it around. But it's got to go one way or the other. We went the wrong way at the start of the race. I just made it really hard on him. You know, just in his ear all the time about trying to get on his 'A-game' because the car was just out of control. And you just don't like driving cars like that. But he's my cousin. He's tough. That's why I guess more than anything, besides his talent, I guess that's why I got him, because he's the only one that would put up with me." EARNHARDT (ON BEING THE TOP HENDRICK MOTORSPORTS FINISHER.): "Yeah, I'm desperate, you know, just to get in the top five and the top 10 every week when the car's capable of doing it. There's a real sense of desperation there the last half of the race not to mess it up. We had a good finish going. So I don't want to miss the Chase. The sky might fall. Everything seems to be working out really good. I just want to keep it going. You know what I mean? I'm just trying not to make any mistakes myself. They gave me great, great racecars. They're really good-looking cars. They do a good job building them. They're pretty confident in their ability, so hopefully I can do my end of the job." EARNHARDT (ON ADJUSTING TO THE TIRES.): "I was just trying to get it to where I could put up with it. I was just trying to get it tolerable. There were a couple times in the race where I had it there, but we'd go...we wouldn't really even make changes. A half pound of air pressure in the left rear just spun me right out. It was really frustrating. I'm glad we're past it. Hopefully there was a good lesson learned. Hopefully, you know, Goodyear doesn't like to hear people bashing the tires, and I don't like doing it, but I isn't going to sit here and put up with this. I don't think any of the other drivers or anybody, you know, is going to do it. So hopefully we can all get along and come up with something better than this. They got a tire test tomorrow at Darlington, and I'm going to go down there. I'd just like to know how that process goes. I went to Texas and tire tested, but they didn't ask me much, what I thought. So I just sit there and, you know, they got these other guys doing the testing. But the times that I've done it, I didn't feel like my input was observed or looked over too well." UP NEXT: The No. 88 National Guard/AMP Energy Chevy next will compete at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, March 16. The race will air live on FOX at 1:30 p.m., ET.  Photo courtesy of Hendrick Motorsports Thanks to Amy Walsh for the race recap. Courtesy of Hendrick Motorsports. Media Relations | No. 88 AMP Energy / National Guard Racing  |
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