Michigan Finish Is A Good Step Forward For Earnhardt
Hendrick Motorsports
Believe it or not, I was very happy for Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s finish in Sunday’s Carfax 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
Take that, all of you Junior fans that think I’m a hater of the driver of the No. 88. I actually had something that many of his fair-weathered fans seem to have given up on Junior: hope.
How serious was I? Enough to go out on a huge limb to pick Junior for my fantasy team – full disclosure: I picked the winner (Brian Vickers), as well as the third- (Earnhardt) and fourth-place (Carl Edwards) finishers – but I just had a feeling that his horrendous season was due for at least one bright spot, if not being the start of a gradual turnaround.
How many of you Junior fans picked him to win or have a top-5 finish at Michigan? I venture to guess, very few.
I can’t say Junior will follow up his third at MIS with a win or another top-5 finish this Saturday at Bristol, but the lifting of such tremendous pressure that he’s been under for the last several months surely has to be both relief and inspiration.
You know the old saying, “If I did it once, I can do it again.” And that’s what Sunday’s finish should hopefully do to inspire Earnhardt, crew chief Lance McGrew and the rest of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports operation.
But at the same time, Junior and Co. can’t afford to become cocky or overconfident, either. Remember what happened after his last win, at MIS ironically enough, back in June 2008, which snapped a 76-race winless streak?
Virtually every diehard Junior fan predicted he was going to go on an immediate tear and return to his glory days earlier this decade while with Dale Earnhardt Inc. Even Junior himself claimed the worst was over and that he was headed back to glory.
Unfortunately, nothing happened. No second win, no breezing through the Chase en route to the championship. No nothing.
I’m hoping that this time, Junior’s showing Sunday will help him and the team keep things more in perspective and realize that in the whole big scheme of things, it was just a small step on what remains a long road back to success.
Yet at the same time, the more important thing to take from Sunday’s race: it may have been a small step, but it was a good step forward, as well.
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