Dale Earnhardt Jr. – driver, No. 8 Budweiser team:
“I’m pretty anxious to get to Darlington. I like it there. It’s going to be different since they’ve installed soft walls. I’m kind of interested to see how much of the track has been taken away because of those soft walls. At that place, you use up every inch of race track they give you and hope by the end of the day you haven’t painted the walls Budweiser red.
"We can win there. We can win anywhere; we've just got to get the right set-up under the car. I've run in the top five at Darlington. It's a good track, but it’s going to be quite different."
About rebounding from adversity at Vegas to win Atlanta:
"I was a rookie in the Winston Cup Series and I was in Rockingham. We took a provisional to start the race. I was really down in the dumps. My daddy and I sat down in his bus and he looked at me and he said, ‘You'll have days like this and tomorrow you might win the race. Don't ever let it get you down because the next day can be the greatest day you'll ever have.’ I always liked it when he'd tell me things like that because he didn't really ever tell you those things too often. But I knew when he said it he wanted me to remember it. So I've always remembered it. I don't really get too bent out of shape over stuff like that. Tony Jr. and Tony Sr. do. The hardest part is really going back and facing them. They take it so personally when they don't get it right. They want to lash out. You've got to really tiptoe around those guys. But I just felt so bad for them. They've never driven a Cup car. They have no idea how bad that car was. I can't explain to them how hard it was to drive it. It was tough.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the way the guys on this team responded to adversity. They don't quit. Even when they're six feet under in their graves they'll still be trying to call out. That's why we came back and ran here (at Atlanta) like we did. They just keep trying. I'm just real proud.”
Dale Jr. and the No. 8 Bud Team at Darlington
Previous Nextel Cup Starts: 8
Best Start: 10th (March 2000)
Best Finish: 4th (March 2002)
This Race, Last Year: ST: 16th / FIN: 6th / LED: 91 laps (most laps led)
After a one-week absence outside the top-five (he had been in the top five in points since Bristol in March of 2003), Dale Jr. climbed back to third in the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup point standings (90 points behind point leader Matt Kenseth) after scoring his second win of the season in Sunday’s Golden Corral 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The Budweiser team has led at least one lap in three of its eight races at the “track too tough to tame.”
-- Dale Jr. is two-for-two in 500-mile races this year, winning the season-opening Daytona 500 and Sunday’s Golden Corral 500. Friend and rival Matt Kenseth has swept the 400-mile events.
-- Sunday’s win assures the Bud team its fifth consecutive multi-win season, a string that dates back to its first full year in Nextel Cup (2000).
Race Details:
Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 / Race No. 5 of 36 in the Nextel Cup Series
Darlington Raceway, Darlington, S.C.
1.366-mile oval, 293 laps, 400 miles
Sunday, March 21, 2004
TV: Fox-TV, 12:30 p.m. ET (pre-race) / 1 p.m. ET race start.
Radio: Motor Racing Network (PRN), XM Radio.
Bud Pole Qualifying: Speed Channel / Friday, 3 p.m. ET.
Dale Jr. on SPEED Channel: Dale Jr., who won his 11th career Nextel Cup victory Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, will appear on Speed Channel’s “Trackside Live” Friday night at 7 p.m. ET.
Anheuser-Busch’s 12 U.S.-based breweries and network of more than 700 wholesalers reduce delivery time and ensure that fresh beer is in retail accounts shortly after packaging. As it reads on every beer package, Anheuser-Busch beers including Budweiser are at their peak of freshness and taste within 110 days from their “Born On” date.
Thanks to Jade Gurss and Mike Davis from fingerprint inc. for sending the race reports and updates.
fingerprint inc.
-- Anheuser-Busch NASCAR Publicity
-- Dale Earnhardt Jr. / No. 8 Budweiser team
www.Budweiser.com |
