NEWS & NOTES
HOMESTEAD STATS: In 10 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has led 93 laps and recorded two top-15 finishes and four top-20s. He scored his best finish—13th—at Homestead during his rookie season in November 2000.
APPROACHING 400: Earnhardt, driver of the No. 88 National Guard/AMP Energy Chevrolet, will make his 400th Cup start at the 2011 Daytona 500 in February. In 398 starts, Earnhardt has recorded 18 wins, nine pole positions, 91 top-five finishes and 150 top-10s.
INTERMEDIATE TRACK STATS: In 191 Cup starts on intermediate (one- to two-mile) tracks, Earnhardt has recorded six wins, six pole positions, 38 top-five finishes and 70 top-10s. On 1.5-mile tracks, such as Homestead, he is eighth overall among active, full-time drivers in the laps led category (1,225 laps) and tied for ninth overall in top-10 finishes (28 total).
CHASSIS CHOICE: Crew chief Lance McGrew and the No. 88 team will unload Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 88-599 for this weekend’s race at Homestead. Earnhardt last raced this chassis at Kansas Speedway in October.
HENDRICK AT HOMESTEAD: While Hendrick Motorsports has yet to go to Victory Lane at Homestead, the organization has scored at least one top-five finish in six of the last 10 events held at the 1.5-mile speedway. Overall, Hendrick has scored nine top-five finishes, 18 top-10s and led 286 laps in 10 events (43 starts) at Homestead.
QUOTES
DALE EARNHARDT JR., DRIVER, NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/AMP ENERGY CHEVROLET (ON HOMESTEAD-MIAMI SPEEDWAY.):
“Homestead has been one of my toughest tracks since they changed the configuration of it. We’ve ran good, but I just don’t seem to really have a line. There are a million different ways you can go through the corner but I haven’t really figured out which one suits me the best. We seem to run good till it gets dark, but this race is going to be run in the afternoon, starting early, so that should help us actually. It keeps the groove up off the bottom of the race track for a longer period of time.”
EARNHARDT (ON HIS OFFSEASON GOALS.):
“My goals are to try to regroup and try to go to the next year a little more prepared. We thought we had it all figured out going in to this year, and we learned a little bit about how much more we had to improve. So when we start the season, we can’t have any doubts or questions in any areas.”
LANCE McGREW, CREW CHIEF, NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD/AMP ENERGY CHEVROLET (ON HOMESTEAD .):
“It’s a real challenging racetrack because it’s not like any other intermediate track that we race at. It’s just very different—it has multiple grooves, it has progressive banking; you can run the bottom, you can run the top, you can run the middle. There are cars that qualify on the top, the bottom or the middle so it gives you a lot of options. It’s just another fast intermediate racetrack, and you have to get the car to handle well. For this event we won’t go from day to dark so the track should be a little more consistent and hopefully easier to get ahold of and to keep the car consistent.”
McGREW (ON THE GOODYEAR TIRE TEST HELD RECENTLY AT HOMESTEAD.):
“We got to try some kind of off-the-wall setups for us, and the car was real quick and real good for a long time. We ran nothing but long runs there 20 laps at a time or more. For us, that’s where we’ve seemed to struggle. We’ve been able to get a car fast at the beginning or end of a run, but not fast over the entire length, and I think it was a big plus for us to get to do that.”
McGREW (ON HIS OFFSEASON GOALS.):
“Everything we do, we have to figure out a way to do it better. You have to figure out how to make more downforce, how to make more horsepower, how to get the pit crew better, how to get the road crew better. Leave no stone unturned.”
| 
|