Dale Jr: Very Few ‘F’ bombs

Per Jr’s post race report - “Me and Lance (McGrew, crew chief) are getting better on the communication and understanding each other. We are running better. We’ve had some poor luck and made some mistakes. We just have to keep our heads up. Hopefully at Pocono we can get it running as good there if not better.”

“I was pretty happy with it at the end of that last run. We were just in our window to make it to the end and pitting early, and expecting NASCAR was going to throw a couple more cautions before the end of the race, but we felt like we were in good shape to get a good finish.”

Once I got home and had a chance to listen to the radio transmissions between driver and crewchief I was happy to hear good communication between the two. Jr was giving Lance McGrew a lot of information as he usually does.

Contrary to media reports, I heard him give degrees of loose or tight in specific corners and excellent suggestions on the tire adjustments. There was a lot of chatter on the radio to the point Jr asked for a little less as they were making him miss his entry on the turns.

Jr - “The last 10 laps of the run, I think we were the best car or one of the best cars on the track. I drove back to Jeff (Gordon) and the No. 9 (Kasey Kahne.”

Actually, just before he pitted that last time I had reported he had the fastest lap time on the track. This new car Lance built was great and I look forward to seeing it run Pocono. [even though Pocono is another boring race] This chassis appeared to look more crab like aka yaw on track than any other
car Jr’s driven. This phenomenon can be achieved by small degrees of body manipulation [wheel base tweak] for aerodynamic advantage which is pretty much held to specific measurements by NASCAR body templates.

Coil binding is another situation created by the COT and the engineers are modifying the car in ways that makes it much more difficult to drive. These tweaks produce a car that drives more like a dirt track car resulting in drivers like Edwards, Stewart, Busch and Johnson being able to make the change from the old car to this new animal much quicker than others. It’s been two years since they started running this car on track and we still have problems with it on certain tracks. But, that’s another story - this is
a Dale Jr blog, I almost got carried away. :)

There are some things that can be done within the limits and it looks like Lance built a car similar to JJ’s minus the incredible speed and good fortune that car enjoys. Hopefully, we can find that good fortune as well. It’s a work in progress and we are making PROGRESS.

Finally, where did he think he would finish?

“We would have finished anywhere from fifth to 10th depending upon how we finished all of our pit stops. NASCAR was probably going to have a couple more yellows before the end of race. No way they were going to let that thing go green like it was all day. If we could have got us a couple more cars on pit road and maybe a couple more on those double-file restarts that are so much fun. (SMILES AND CHUCKLES) They are a blast.”

I like the fact that he is having fun with the double file restart. I do remember three weeks ago he wasn’t too happy when he continuously got the outside line to re-start which at most tracks is not the optimum place to pass depending on time of day and laps into race etc.

As a fan, I say if it will make the races more exciting I’m all for it. I just don’t want unnecessary wrecks and loss of points at the expense of making the COT racing entertaining.

I will close with a caption of the picture attached to my blog today saying “ Hell my helmet looks better than I do today - but I qualified third at Indy!” After being very ill for about 3 days! Good job Jr. on qualifying and on running a very good race. And, who knows, perhaps when they tear down the
engine they may find it was not your fault.

Brief Pocono stats: Top 5 - 5 Top 10 - 6 Avg - 16.8

In 2007 he started on the pole and finished 2nd. Two good finishes last year 12th and 4th.