Dale Jr. snaps losing streak

Photo by CIA Stock Photo: Dale Jr. is doused as he climbs from the No. 88 Amp Energy Drink/National Guard Chevrolet.
Wow, there were a lot of people that thought his day might never come and Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a big 'L' on his chest. Now, I am not saying that Dale Jr. is a loser but I will say that he has had a long spell of coming in behind the race-winner.

The naysayers have been spouting off for weeks saying that Junior is a has been, or better yet, a never was. I, on the other hand, think that Junior's going to Hendrick Motorsports was the best thing that he could do for his career. I predict that this is just the first of many more wins that Dale Jr. will get while racing under the Hendrick banner.

Here's a few quotes from the post-race press conference:

THE MODERATOR:  This is your 18th victory in 306 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts, your first win since Richmond 2006.  Why don't you tell us a little bit about your run today.

        DALE EARNHARDT, JR:  Well, we started out the race pretty good.  Had about a top-five car, and we were real loose on the first 20 laps of the run and we were probably one of the best cars on the track the last 20 laps of the run.

        We just lost so much track position, distance mainly, not spots so much, from the leader in the first 20 laps of every run with the car being so loose.  But I felt like we had a top-five, definitely a top-10 car.  We came in that last stop, we were going to be about six laps short, and I saved six laps of gas.

        So just real lucky.  I've got to hand it to Tony Jr. for being a risk taker, not so much audacity wouldn't be a good word, but it's close to that.  He's done a good job this year of getting us good finishes, better finishes than we probably should have.  Normally would not take the risk to trade the top-five for a possible win because normally half the time it doesn't work out, but we did the right thing today.

        So, it was a real good car.  Happy Father's Day to everybody.  My guys had really, really good stops and the car was great, the motor was great, the body was good, the chassis was good, set up was really close, and we didn't mess with it too much all day, just really loose, too loose to start with on the first few laps of the tire run.  And that's pretty much it.

        THE MODERATOR:   Also joined by Tony Eury, Jr. (crew chief) and Mr. Rick Hendrick (team owner).  Tony tell us about your day from the pit box.

        TONY EURY, JR.:  Today was pretty good.  We had a top-five car like he said most of the day and I just kept making little bitty changes.  Because you can go over an edge with this car really easy, and it was basically, you can start out really loose but at the end and be really tight.

        I looked at it today as we had a top-five car and that was as good as we were going to get.  Come down to the last caution, we were six laps short, and the caution come out six laps later after we stopped.  So I actually called up Stevie (Letarte, crew chief of Hendrick Motorsports team car, No. 24 DuPont Impala SS) and I asked him:  "Are you going for it?"

And he's like:  "No, I ain't going for it."  I'm like, okay.

        Those cautions helped out and reduced it to two laps short.  I'm like, "Look, Dude, I'm not going any further forward because the car did not really respond good with the two tires, so just chill out and save some fuel.  You have a pretty good caution behind you."  And I knew some guys, the next caution, the guys stopped, so they could make it.  

        So we are sitting here at the tail end of the guys that could make it and I'm telling him, just save gas because worst case scenario, we finish 25th, so who cares, go for it.  And if not, you're going to wind up 25th or win, if things just roll right.  That was kind of the scenario we was going on.  And he was sitting there running around and Jamie(McMurray) started coming up on him and I knew Jamie could probably make it.

        And I told him:  Look, we've got to race that guy and when the caution came out, I was pretty sick, I was like, okay, we're done, but I could make 200; 202, we're in trouble.  I told him as soon as the caution comes out, shut it off.  And coasting around like he did is probably what got us the win.  He's done it the last couple weeks, did a good job of saving fuel and we knew what he had.  So I'm going to be honest with you, my nerves is pretty tore up right now