Let us count the ways
How bad was Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Sunday?
He:
* Had two blown tires
* Caught his car on fire
* Started 34th and limped home 33rd.
* Finished six laps down. Heck, even Mike Garvey managed to lead a lap and finish only one lap down in 25th.
* Fell to 16th in points, 504 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson and 104 points outside the magic 400-point Chase cushion.
After teammate Michael Waltrip won the pole, finished fifth and passed Junior in the standings (Waltrip jumped two spots to 15th), I'm beginning to think the DEI camp is debating the fate of the wrong driver.
1 p.m. update: USA Today has a bunch more, including this: "Few would have expected Junior to have led just five laps all year, recorded more worse-than-30th-place finishes (four) than top-five efforts (three) and failed to earn a pole halfway through the 26-race regular season."
Also, according to the stories, the in-house communication between the No. 8 and No. 15 crews were worse than anyone thought.
Comments (3)
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How bad has it become? 20 years ago Dave Marcis and Jimmy Means would have led more laps just by staying out a lap under caution to pick up the 5 points.
Posted on June 14, 2005 8:33 AM
I don't think you can get those 5 bonus points for leading a lap when you're five laps down.
Posted on June 14, 2005 12:54 PM
My dad always said if it isnt broken dont fix it. Sure last year Jr. didnt win the Nextel Cup Championship but he had a better year than a whole bunch of other guys. With the crew he had and the crew cheif he had at the end of 2004 he could have gone on to win the cup this year. Insteed he keeps trying to fix a problem that i really dont think he knows what the problem is. Then again who am i to question how he runs his team, but if i were him id quit changing stuff and get back to what was working for you. and quit wrecking your team mates thats not a good way to keep a sponcer.
Posted on June 15, 2005 8:25 PM