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NO. 88 AMP ENERGY / NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET
DALE EARNHARDT JR. - POST RACE RECAP
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VENUE: TEXAS MOTOR SPEEDWAY (1.5-MILE TRI-OVAL)
CIRCUIT: NASCAR SPRINT CUP SERIES (RACE 34 OF 36)
DATE: NOV. 2, 2008 (334 LAPS, 501 MILES)
*****
TEXAS STATS: In 12 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at Texas Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has scored one win, three top-five finishes and seven top-10s. He has led 393 laps at the 1.5-mile racetrack.
LAST TIME OUT: Earnhardt earned the pole position during his most recent outing at Texas Motor Speedway and led 31 laps before finishing 12th there on April 4. Earnhardt averages a starting spot of 8.6 and a finish of 12.8 at this track.
FIRST WIN: Earnhardt, now in his 10th season of Cup competition, scored his first career win on April 2, 2000, at Texas after leading 106 laps. He also notched his first NASCAR Nationwide Series win at the intermediate track on April 4, 1998, after leading six laps.
HIGH MILEAGE: Texas has the most interstate mileage of any state in the nation with 17 routes stretching roughly 3,233 miles, and Earnhardt has logged 5,743.5 miles at Texas Motor Speedway. If Earnhardt finishes all 501 miles on Sunday, he will have logged nearly enough TMS laps to travel the state's highways twice.
HENDRICK AT TEXAS: In 15 races at Texas Motor Speedway, Rick Hendrick's teams have posted top-five finishes in 12 events and top-10 finishes in 14. Overall, the organization has recorded two wins, 14 top-five finishes and 22 top-10s at the track.
CHASSIS FOR TEXAS: Crew chief Tony Eury Jr. and the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard engineers chose Chassis No. 88-521 for Texas. Earnhardt most recently used this car at Lowe's Motor Speedway in October and finished 36th after blowing a right-front tire.
GUN SLINGER: This Friday, Earnhardt will receive the trophy he won for earning the pole position at Texas Motor Speedway in April -- a custom Beretta Giubileo II 12-guage over-and-under shotgun. Engraved by hand in Italy, the Beretta features Earnhardt's likeness on one of the side plates and the date of qualifying and the track's image on the other. The trophy required more than 100 hours to complete.
NAMES STILL THERE: Fans whose names appeared on the No. 88 AMP Energy "Ride with Dale Jr."/National Guard Chevy at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway still can log on to www.AMPEnergy.com to see their names on the car. They must use the e-mail addresses they used during registration to locate their names.
WIN A BUS: Fans can go to www.AMPEnergy.com to sign up for the "Ultimate Talladega RV" sweepstakes. One fan will win the one-of-a-kind No. 88 AMP Energy-branded bus. Special features include an entertainment system, a cooler for AMP Energy drink, custom wheels and autographed Earnhardt memorabilia.
WARRIOR VIDEO: Fans can visit www.NationalGuardWarrior.com to see Kid Rock's new "Warrior" music video and exclusive behind-the-scenes footage featuring Earnhardt, National Guard citizen soldiers and the No. 88 team. The two-minute video is now airing before movies in select AMC Theatres and includes the song "Warrior," which Kid Rock wrote specifically for the Army National Guard. During the next two months, the video will appear in more than 3,000 theaters and on more than 27,000 movie screens around the country.
*****
DALE EARNHARDT JR., DRIVER OF THE NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD IMPALA SS (ON TEXAS.): "I hope we can qualify well again. I feel like we will. We had a pretty loose car during the race, and that concerns me a little bit. But I think we have a good idea of why that happened and how to prevent that. That was so long ago from what we've learned on the car. Going into this next one, we'll have a better idea on what setup we need to run because that setup (in the spring) wasn't the way to go. I'm just hoping that when the race starts we can get going and be good all day."
EARNHARDT (ON HIS GOALS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE CHASE.): "I want to get good finishes. I want to get finishes that we deserve. I feel like we should run in the top five every week, and I want that to happen. I want to try to prove to myself that I belong here by getting consistent finishes the rest of the deal, so I can have a little momentum going into the next year and have an opportunity to make the Chase again."
TONY EURY JR., CREW CHIEF OF THE NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD IMPALA SS (ON GOING BACK TO TEXAS.): "I think we're looking forward to getting there. Jimmie (Johnson) runs real well there. We sat on the pole, ran real well at the start of the race, got really too loose there in the middle to second half. We've kind of got an idea about what was going on there. We'll be able to get our shotgun (for winning the pole position in the spring) when we go back. That's going to be some nice stuff. Beretta had to go engrave it and everything. I'm waiting to see how the tussle's going to go between me and Dale Jr. to see who actually gets it (LAUGHS). He promised it to me so I'm going to see if he stands up on his end of the bargain."
EURY (ON THE SHOTGUN.): "It's a pretty big deal. It's got a lot of engraving, got some gold on it. It's a pretty impressive gun Those kind of trophies mean the most because they're pretty special, and it's something you can keep for a long time in your family."
*****
Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Official Site - www.dalejr.com
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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