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News & Notes
EARNHARDT AT KENTUCKY: Saturday night’s race at Kentucky Speedway will be Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s first NASCAR start at the 1.5-mile tri-oval. The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has visited four 1.5-mile racetracks so far this season, and Earnhardt has finished each race inside the top 10. Most recently, he notched a second-place finish at Kansas Speedway in June.
KENTUCKY CHASSIS: Crew chief Steve Letarte will unload Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 88-657 for this weekend’s Cup event at Kentucky. Earnhardt last raced this chassis to a runner-up finish at Kansas Speedway in June. The team will test this chassis during Thursday’s open test at Kentucky.
INTERMEDIATE TRACK STATS: In 199 Sprint Cup starts on intermediate tracks (one-to-two miles), Earnhardt has recorded six wins, six pole positions, 39 top-five finishes and 75 top-10s. He has a 16.4 average starting position and an average finishing position of 17.3
FIRST WIN, FIRST TIME: Earnhardt has one win while making his first Sprint Cup start at a racetrack. He won at Texas Motor Speedway in his first appearance at the track in April 2000.
LEAD LAP: According to NASCAR’s loop data statistics, Earnhardt leads all drivers this season with percentage of laps run on the lead lap. The Kannapolis, N.C., native has spent 94.25 (4,739 of 5,028 laps) percent of laps on the lead lap this season.
POINT STANDINGS: Earnhardt remains seventh in the championship standings after finishing 19th at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway last week. He sits 52 points behind leader Kevin Harvick and 39 points ahead of 11th-place Denny Hamlin after 17 races in the 2011 season.
HENDRICK AT KENTUCKY: This will be Hendrick Motorsports first Sprint Cup trip to Kentucky’s 1.5-mile tri-oval. In six previous NASCAR Nationwide Series starts, the organization recorded one win, one top-five finish and two top-10s. When it comes to 1.5-mile racetracks, Hendrick Motorsports has totaled 29 wins, 122 top-five finishes, 191 top-10s and 29 pole positions at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Chicagoland Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kansas Speedway, Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Texas Motor Speedway.
APPROACHING 200: With Jeff Gordon’s win at Pocono Raceway on June 12, Hendrick Motorsports has earned 197 Cup victories. The organization ranks first in NASCAR’s modern era for wins and second all-time behind Petty Enterprises, which has 268 victories.
Quotes
STEVE LETARTE, CREW CHIEF, NO. 88 DIET MOUNTAIN DEW/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET (ON THURSDAY’S TEST AT KENTUCKY SPEEDWAY.):
“It will be extremely valuable, not because Kentucky is new, but any time you have an opportunity to run data on the car is huge. It’s kind of like a tire test. The best part about this is that every team will be there. Some times at a tire test you don’t know how fast you need to be, but at Kentucky it will be better that everyone is there and you can gauge how fast the track is.”
LETARTE (ON EXPECTATIONS FOR SATURDAY’S RACE.):
“The way I look at it is that this is the first time for everyone. Some have run (NASCAR) Nationwide cars there. Some have done testing there, but I’ve said it time and time again, when you start every race, everyone has the same opportunity. I think everyone has the same opportunity at Kentucky. Some have more experience there, but it’s a pretty clear-cut track. It’s a relatively flat mile-and-a-half oval. We run at a lot of similar tracks so hopefully we can get this one figured out.”
LETARTE (ON KEEPING THE MOMENTUM AFTER A TOUGH WEEK.):
“You can’t let it get to you and get you down. Daytona (Fla.) is easy to not let it get you down because so much happens at that race that you can’t control. With Sonoma, we knew races like that were going to come. Everyone has them. The (No.) 99 just had one at Daytona. That’s another one where I don’t think the team did anything wrong. The one that stung the most was Michigan because I don’t think we performed up to our level. It will be good to get back to Kentucky, back to the 1.5-mile tracks that we have all summer and put our expectations and our results back in our own hands.”
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