Quotes from Dale Earnhardt Jr. / Driver, #8 Budweiser Chevrolet:
About the track repairing a major bump in the pavement (known occasionally as "Dale's Dip" after Earnhardt Jr. brought the problem to light last season) between turns one and two: "I'm happy about it because the racing at this place gets better every time we come back, but that bump was so big it would upset your car if you weren't running right down on the white line. It made it really hard to run side-by-side with anyone on that end of the track. It's not something that happens only at Texas - almost all of the tracks we go to have some major bumps over the tunnels that run under the track. The soil settles and you have issues. But, this one was pretty big, and I spoke up because I felt like if they fixed it, we could really see two- and three-wide racing through that end of the track. I'll be anxious to see what it's like when we get there, and I hope it means we'll be able to have a lot more fun and put on a better show for the fans. The fans there have - from day one - been great. They show up in huge numbers and they let ya know what they think. I think it's one of the loudest crowds and they show up even on qualifying day in big numbers. That's cool to see and it's a place that means a lot to me in my career and I think the fans there appreciate that."
About two consecutive top-10 finishes for the Budweiser team: "A lot of people made too much of the start of the season (two DNFs to start the 2007 season), but there was never concern or panic in the team. We knew we had run really well before we ran into problems, so we knew the finishes would come. But, we're also not getting too excited about two top-10s. It's a long, long season, and we believe that's where we should be. It's all matter-of-fact, it's expected inside the team, but we're not going to sit back and chill. We need to keep working on getting there every week. We're bringing our favorite chassis (#039) to Texas, and I think we'll be right back up there if we do what we should. Let's see if we can make it three top-10s and two top-fives in a row. The only time we've finished worse than 12th at Texas was when I crashed with a lapped car - and we would have easily been a top-five car that afternoon, so history is on our side."
Dale Jr. and the No. 8 Bud Team at Texas Motor Speedway:
Previous Cup Starts: 9
Best Start: 1st (Bud Pole Award, April 2001, Career pole #3)
Best Finish: 1st (April 2000, First Career Nextel
Cup win in 12th career start)
This Race, Last Year: ST: 15h / FIN: 12th
Top-Five Finishes: 3
Top-10 Finishes: 7
Laps Led: 263 laps in seven races led
Top-10 Starts: 6
Average Start: 8.67 (has started worse than 11th only once)
Average Finish: 10.22 (only one finish worse than 12th)
Career Winnings: $1,801,213
Minutiae: Texas Motor Speedway has been the site of some of the most memorable moments of Dale Jr's career: he scored his first career victory in both the Busch Series (1998) and Nextel Cup Series (2000) at Texas... Race fans voted his Cup win in April 2000 as the #1 Most Memorable Moment in the 10-year history of TMS. Both of his victories are featured in a book produced by the track celebrating the first 10 years of the venue.... He grabbed his third career Bud Pole here in 2001... In nine starts, he has finished worse than 12th only once: he crashed with a lapped car after leading the 2002 race.... He has seven top-10 finishes in nine Cup starts and has also led seven of the nine races.... Dale Jr. is one of 12 drivers with one victory at Texas: no driver has won twice.... His margin of victory in 2000 (5.92 seconds over Jeff Burton) remains the largest in track history.... Media Note: watch for an advisory Tuesday regarding a Budweiser news conference at the track Friday morning. Here's the Point: Going into the third race of the season, Dale Jr. was in 41st place in the Nextel Cup standings. Now, four races later, Junior and the team are in 11th place.
Loop Data Ratings: Based on NASCAR data from the last four Texas races, Dale Jr. is ranked highly among all drivers in the following categories:
Quality Passes: 1st (passes in the top-15 positions)
Average Running Position: 4th
Driver Rating: 7th
Green Flag Passes: 4th
Laps in the Top-15: 2nd
Primary Chassis this week: #039... returning from a series of pirouettes at California Speedway followed by a comedic bow to the crowd from the driver as he exited. Because he was able to avoid crashing into anything, the chassis remained intact and is back in action this week.
Race Details:
Samsung 500 / Texas Motor Speedway / Ft. Worth, TX
1.5-mile oval / 334 laps / 501 miles
Sunday, April 15, 2006
TV: Fox-TV, 1:30 p.m. ET
Radio: Performance Racing Network (PRN) / Sirius Satellite NASCAR Radio
Online media and fan guide for Dale Earnhardt Jr, and the No. 8 Budweiser team available at www.fingerprintonline.com. (Click on the Budweiser bottle cap.)
Thanks to Jade Gurss from fingerprint inc. for sending the race reports and updates.
fingerprint inc. -
-- Anheuser-Busch NASCAR Publicity
-- Dale Earnhardt Jr. / No. 8 Budweiser team
blogs and info: www.fingerprintonline.com
www.Budweiser.com
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