Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Best Chase Title Chance Hinges on Win at Talladega
After finishing 20th in last Saturday night's Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. may think about having a special bumper sticker created for his race car.
The message will be simple but omnipotent: "Talladega or bust!"
There's no other way to look at it.
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Junior now literally and figuratively has his back against the wall, ranked last in the Chase standings and faced with a must-win position heading to next Sunday's final race of the Contender Round, at Talladega Superspeedway.
Just like teammate Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt is 57 points out of eighth place—the cutoff position after Talladega, where four drivers are eliminated and will shrink the Chase field to just eight heading into the Eliminator Round.
Anything less than a win at 'Dega just won't be enough to save Earnhardt and his championship hopes.
And despite what he's done in previous years, like finishing third in 2003 (the year before the advent of the Chase format) and career-best fifth-place finishes in Chase seasons 2004, 2006 and 2013, this has just seemed like it was destined to be Junior's year.
From his win in the season-opening Daytona 500 to his two other wins at Pocono, as well as the confidence and maturity he's shown—along with an obvious greater appreciation for success and determination to succeed—up until the last few weeks it appeared 2014 would indeed be Junior's championship to win.
Now, it's all but gone unless he pulls a Hail Mary victory out of his fire suit at Talladega.
Also all but gone is his hope of sending soon-to-depart crew chief Steve Letarte out with his first championship. Letarte is leaving as Junior's man on the pit box and also Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the season to become an analyst for NBC on NASCAR next season.
And then there's the fact Junior just turned 40 last week. Will he be racing five or eight or 10 years from now? Will he ever have as good of a chance for a championship as he has this season? Will he be able to build as close and strong of a relationship with Greg Ives as his new crew chief starting in 2015 as he has had with Letarte?
Sure, Junior fans will be the first to say their favorite driver is "The Man" at Talladega, with five career Sprint Cup triumphs there as well as 10 top-five and 14 top-10 finishes. Junior's last win at 'Dega came 10 years ago, ironically in the fall Chase race there.
Unfortunately, those wins of old are also days of old. Check out his record at Talladega since his last win in 2004:
| 2005 | 15th | 40th |
| 2006 | 31st | 23rd |
| 2007 | 7th | 40th |
| 2008 | 10th | 28th |
| 2009 | 2nd | 11th |
| 2010 | 13th | 39th |
| 2011 | 4th | 25th |
| 2012 | 9th | 20th |
| 2013 | 17th | 2nd |
| 2014 | 26th | N/A |
In the 19 races since then at the 2.66-mile, high-banked and high-speed track, the largest oval in NASCAR, Earnhardt has struggled terribly, with just three top-five finishes and three other top-10 showings.
Granted, Earnhardt finished second at Talladega in last fall's Chase race there, which is certainly something to give his fans cause for optimism. But then came this spring at 'Dega, and Junior ended up a mediocre 26th.
Things were looking fine for Earnhardt heading into the Chase. He won three races in the first 26, the most he's had in one season in nearly a decade. But then came the Chase and with it a few freak occurrences: He broke a steering wheel—it literally fell apart in his hands—at Dover. And then this past Saturday at Charlotte, Earnhardt's transmission shifter lever snapped off in his hands on Lap 137, leaving him with a car that, well, he couldn't shift.
He threw the transmission into high gear and left it there, which contrary to what many may think is not the way to win a race. With less than 100 laps to go, he pitted, and in addition to tires and fuel, Earnhardt picked up a pair of vise grips to try and help his shifting issues.
Alas, it didn't help, and he was left with that mediocre finish.
It's definitely an oddity that Earnhardt suffered such misfortune, but it's a malady that has become quite common in the last two months on the Sprint Cup circuit.
At Michigan in mid-August, six-time and defending Sprint Cup champ Jimmie Johnson suffered a broken shifter. His team tried to jerry-rig a quick fix, having Johnson go up and down through the gears using a set of vise grips and a pair of pliers.
Unfortunately, that gizmo didn't work as effectively as hoped. And Johnson had to eventually relent and came onto pit road to have the faux shifter replaced with the real deal.
Two weeks later in Atlanta, Clint Bowyer also suffered a broken shifter. But his story didn't have the good end result that Johnson had at Michigan, ultimately finishing 38th in that race.
That finish knocked Bowyer out of the top 16 heading into the following week's final Chase qualifying race at Richmond. Unfortunately for Bowyer, he could not rally back and ultimately missed making the playoffs.
For the better part of the first two-thirds of the season, Earnhardt seemed to be living a charmed life and staring at what potentially would be the best chance of his 15-year career in NASCAR's marquee race series to finally win that coveted first Sprint Cup trophy.
But right now, Earnhardt appears to have gone from charmed to cursed.
And if he doesn't earn his first win at Talladega in a decade next Sunday, Junior's best chance for that first Cup championship may ultimately go down in history as also his last.
Follow me on Twitter @JerryBonkowski
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