Dale Earnhardt Jr. Could Bring Win At Dover For Hendrick Motorsports
May 30, 2008
CIA Stock Photo, Inc.
Hendrick Motorsports knows something about success at Dover so Junior has to be very much looking forward to Sunday’s race. Hendrick Motorsports has had its cars race close to 50 Cup events at Dover and those entries have chalked up 10 wins, 35 top-fives and 61 top-10s. Six times a HM driver has sat on the pole, and that feat has been achieved in three of the last four years.
Junior knows they call Dover the “Monster Mile” but he’s proven he can tame this beast of a track. While with Dale Earnhardt Inc.—his former organization which he parted ways with after last season—Junior’s Dover resume read one win, four top-fives and seven top-10s. He has completed 99 percent of the laps (6,339 of 6,404) at the track, leading for 366 of them. Junior got a win at Dover in September of 2001, a race in which he led the most laps (193).
Junior will be in a chassis he has driven to two top-10 finishes this season—a fifth at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway and a sixth at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. His cousin and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. hopes to add a win to the success achieved by his driver in that car.
Other drivers to watch
Dover is the type of track that Tony Stewart loves and he has the finishes to show why. In 18 Cup starts the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has two wins, nine top-fives, and 12 top-10s. Stewart has led in 10 of his 17 races at Dover for a combined 1,066 laps. His average finish at the Monster Mile is 10.6.
Carl Edwards won at Dover last September after starting 15th. The Roush Fenway Racing driver, who is sixth in the points standings, will be making his eighth Cup start at the concrete oval where he has one win, three top-fives and four top-10s. On Sunday he hopes to get out front with a brand-new chassis.
Kyle Busch, the points leader by 94 markers and winner of three races this season, has four top-fives in six Cup starts at Dover, where he has led a total of 112 laps. He’s hoping to be looking at the checkers this time around with his best result at Dover coming in his first race at the intermediate track—a second-place finish achieved after he led 90 laps in the spring three years ago.
