News & Notes
MOST RECENTLY AT POCONO: Dale Earnhardt Jr. worked his way from his 21st starting position to finish sixth at Pocono Raceway in June. It was Earnhardt’s second top-10 finish at Pocono behind the wheel of a Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.
POINTS AFTER INDIANAPOLIS: After finishing 16th last week at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. currently ranks 10th in the championship standings. He trails leader Carl Edwards by 76 points and leads 11th-place Denny Hamlin by 19 points.
AT POCONO: In 23 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series starts at Pocono Raceway, Earnhardt has recorded one pole position, five top-five finishes and seven top-10s. He has completed 97 percent of all the laps he’s attempted (4,356 laps of 4,489 total). The 36-year-old driver has led a total of 98 laps there.
POCONO POLE POSITION: Earnhardt earned his Sprint Cup pole position at Pocono in August 2007, and he went on to lead eight laps and finish second in that race. The runner-up effort matched his best performance at the Long Pond, Pa., track. Earnhardt also finished second there on July 29, 2001, after leading 31 laps.
CHASSIS CHOICE: This weekend, crew chief Steve Letarte and the No. 88 team will unload Hendrick Motorsports Chassis No. 88-668. Earnhardt most recently raced this chassis to a 21st-place finish at Michigan International Speedway in June.
PENNSYLVANIA NATIVES: Two members of the No. 88 Chevrolet team consider the Keystone State home. Spotter T.J. Majors hails from Wampum, where he grew up racing dirt tracks in western Pennsylvania and in 2003 was named the Goody’s Dash Series Rookie of the Year. Shock specialist Jason Seitzinger is a native of Shartlesville.
PEPSI’S PLACE: PepsiCo’s Purchase, N.Y., headquarters is located 125 miles east of Pocono Raceway. The company, which sponsors Earnhardt’s car with its AMP Energy brand, has been headquartered in Purchase since 1970.
RECENT VICTORY: Hendrick Motorsports visited Victory Lane during its most recent trip to Pocono’s Tricky Triangle in June. Jeff Gordon led 39 laps and picked up his fifth career victory at the 2.5-mile speedway. Gordon leads the current crop of Cup drivers in wins at Pocono, but he is tied on the all-time list with Bill Elliott.
HENDRICK AT POCONO: Hendrick Motorsports is the winningest organization at Pocono with 12 victories. In 55 Cup races (177 starts) at the 2.5-mile racetrack, Hendrick Motorsports also has gathered 51 top-five finishes and 91 top-10s at Pocono.
APPROACHING 200: With 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
DALE EARNHARDT JR., DRIVER, NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET (ON POCONO.):
“Pocono is real tough to get around, but I like it. It’s a pretty tough racetrack with all three corners being really different. The car wants to drive different through all three corners. Hopefully you have a good balance across the board.”
STEVE LETARTE, CREW CHIEF, NO. 88 AMP ENERGY/NATIONAL GUARD CHEVROLET (ON USING INFORMATION FROM JUNE RACE AT POCONO RACEWAY.):
“You always learn things as the season goes on. Without a doubt, Pocono is the closest we run the two races throughout the year. It’s probably the place that your setup is the closest. The big thing is that the second race is a little bit warmer and the track has a little less grip. It will be interesting to see how much less grip it has. The last race there was the first time in a few years that everyone was able to shift again. That is definitely going to affect it. Now that we have a race under our belts we’ll be going back with things that we have changed. The No. 24 team won and he was fast and we were pretty fast. We have high expectations going back.”
LETARTE (ON THE CHALLENGES OF POCONO.):
“The biggest challenge is the three completely different corners. You have to be fast in the first corner, and then you have to be good enough in one of the corners to make it your passing corner and not be bad enough in any of the corners to get passed. The other hard part of Pocono is the pit strategy. It’s run a lot like a road course. You don’t lose a lap during a pit stop, and it gets very confusing. It can get stressful calling a race there.”
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