Earnhardt Earned His 1st Victory at Texas; He Could Use Another

It was the spring of 2000 and a career was blossoming. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (No. 88 Amp Energy/National Guard Chevrolet), a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series rookie fresh off winning consecutive NASCAR Nationwide Series titles, came to Texas Motor Speedway.

PHOTO: CIA STOCK

Making only his 12th start in NASCAR’s top series, Earnhardt went to Victory Lane, where he was joined by his father, the late Dale Earnhardt Sr. for a memorable celebration. Earnhardt went on to win twice more in 2000, at the Richmond spring race and, incredibly, in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race — becoming the first rookie to do so.

Of course, Earnhardt was almost immediately considered a “champion in waiting.” Nine years later, the waiting continues, with Earnhardt’s early-season struggles attracting increased focus on his team, in his second season with the highly successful Hendrick Motorsports organization.

Criticism has surfaced this season from both media and at least one rival in the series, Kyle Busch (No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota). None other than Rick Hendrick himself defended the No. 88 team vigorously last week, saying, “I am 100% behind this group. I have no intentions of making any changes. I have all intentions of making it better.”

Said Earnhardt: “We’re just trying to hear out everybody’s opinions on some things we can try or do differently, and if it will help. We’re just working hard to get better … we don’t sit on our tails hoping it’ll turn around on it’s own because it probably wouldn’t happen that way.”

Hard work paid dividends this past weekend. Earnhardt finished an encouraging eighth at Martinsville Speedway, his best finish of the season. He comes into Sunday’s Samsung 500, up to 16th in the series standings. More reason for optimism: In addition to the 2000 victory at the fast, 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway track, Earnhardt has two Samsung 500 poles — 2001 and last year.

“We have excellent equipment,” Earnhardt said. “We just have to know what to do with it. We got to get a little bit better, as a team, to compete. The stuff is right there in front of us but man, we just gotta figure out what to do to make it work.”