Dale Jr: We Don't Need No Stinking Fuel Pressure [Texas Recap]

Let me gather my wits and control my Anger............Where were all the fancy engineers on the pit box? First, Jr wanted to pit when Matt did. He told Lance he wanted tires because he knew the others were getting tires making them faster and Lance said no - just a splash and go which didn't happen until the car ran out of fuel, and then of course, there was no GO because it wasn't picking up fuel!!! He stalled going down pit road and sat there for what seemed like a very long time - Jr even asked "Can I get some help here." Where was the team? OTL?

A crew chief should know that you never let the car leave the pit box without fuel pressure. If they had held him until the car had fuel pressure he wouldn't have finished 3 laps down in 25th position, I'm guessing still top 15 or better. And, if they had pitted when they should have the 88 would have finished top 5 for sure!

I will say that earlier the fuel was said to be 5 laps short and they pitted with 7 to go. So, who screwed up? Something was miscalculated somewhere up there on that fancy pit box. Somebody goofed! Is this a case of an inexperienced ex NW CC and/or sloppy work going on atop the box or both? I know they were hoping for a caution and even Jr said there would be one, but if people are doing fuel calculations and there's no caution happening you can't wait so long that you run out coming to pit road.

The car appeared to run well getting as high up as third place.

Let me add here, I see so many people posting "bad luck" which this isn't - just about every parts failure or bad decision we've had is because of human error! Even wrecks are not bad luck but the fault of whoever decided to wreck you or wasn't talented enough to keep from wrecking you. Tums anyone? Bad luck is when you step wrong and fall, lose your wallet etc.

My audio person has disappeared so this is the best I can do regarding the scanner chatter ......... From what I could see there wasn't much chatter anyway. Seems as though quite a bit of this race was single file parade racing again. If JJ wasn't in the garage being helped by all Hendrick personnel including the car chiefs of both the 88 and 24 team the announcers wouldn't have anything to talk about. That reminds me, I was wondering why the 5 didn't send help - lol - are they licking their chops thinking that elusive championship is back within reach. Sort of.

The first words out of Jr's mouth after JJ's wreck were "is the 48 OK?" [Good guy]

There was a caution for debris Jr asks TJ where it was and TJ responds it's probably in the infield. [was that to save Gordon?] People were wondering.

Jr mentions brakes getting hot AGAIN. Who is installing the brakes and why isn't the same happening to the other 3 cars.....don't they all use same parts?

Jr told LM he was pretty disappointed in the brakes the last couple of weeks...LM said no brake dust so he's surprised.

I guess bad things do happen to good people!

Odds & Ends:

David Reutimann doesn't discriminate. Took out Hendrick driver Dale Jr. at New Hampshire, now Johnson at Texas. Good thing his sponsor is Tums next year - he can send boxes to those he wrecks.

From the Gluckometer - thanks Jeff - The most noise at Texas was drawn by Dale Earnhardt Jr., who received a 10 in the cheers category (10 being the most noise, 1 being the least). If anyone thinks Earnhardt Jr.’s popularity is declining, you couldn’t tell it by the cheers at Texas.

And, finally what happened to Shrubbie? He split faster than that B-52 that did the pre-race flyover. A leopard cannot change it's spots even with all the public relations training.

And, DANG IT, he did not make history in winning the trifecta in Texas, how will we ever get over this? What will ABC have to talk about next week? Dare I even think this -> Is he entered in all 3 races again next week? Where's my Advil and my Tums? Maybe Kevin Harvick can beat him to this historical event in Nascar since he's running all 3 races. Please pray to the racing Gods and Sheriff Joe Arpaio that some kind of fate will intercede at Phoenix.

Where's the media? If Jr had made these mistakes, missed pit road, missed his pit etc. they would have been crawling all over it. The fact that HMS made such a crucial error and the pit crew appeared to not know what to do should be worthy of a story or two.

That's it for this week - leave a comment for me whether you liked the column or not and if there's a subject you would like to see. Keep in mind my specialty is Jr, so try to stay on that subject.