What to Expect from Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Season

In every contest there is a winner and there are losers.

And make no mistake about it. The Chase for the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup championship was a contest. It was a grand contest where all the participants have essentially the same ingredients to make a product that puts them in position to win the contest.

In the 2014 edition of the Chase, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and crew chief Steve Letarte came up just a bit short with their version of the product.

I can’t imagine the frustration—with a tiny bit of envy thrown in for good measure—that Earnhardt Jr. must feel knowing that Kevin Harvick and his crew chief, Rodney Childers, were able to do something with essentially the identical parts and pieces that Earnhardt Jr. and his crew chief had at their disposal.

That they didn’t make it past the Contender Round didn’t make their season a failure. 

There were four race wins where Earnhardt Jr. and Letarte were the best of the best—the season opener at Daytona, the sweep of both races at Pocono and Martinsville, a bittersweet victory that came a week after the team had been eliminated from the championship.

And there were very impressive stats, like 12 top-fives and 20 top-10s. That last one, the top-10s? That’s a statistic that shows the team had a necessary component for success—consistency, something you need to be able to challenge for the championship.

But this new Chase format makes winning the only measure of success.

And so the consistency I just mentioned? It was nowhere to be found in the 10 races of the Chase, where Earnhardt Jr.’s average finish was a 21.1 in the six races before Talladega, his last race before he was eliminated from the Chase. Compare that number to 7.3, which was the average finish by the eventual champion Kevin Harvick for those same six races.

Chris Trotman/Getty Images

Letarte had announced earlier in the season that this would be his last campaign as crew chief of the No. 88 car. He had planned to go out on a high note, perhaps by winning the championship. 

Junior’s legion of fans thought he might, too.

Now it’s time to turn the page on the Steve Letarte era. 

To his credit, Letarte leaves behind a strong group of individuals that have shown the potential for winning the Sprint Cup championship with a driver who has matured into a role as a leader. Junior has shown glimpses of greatness on occasion, but meanwhile, he still searches for that first Sprint Cup title.

New crew chief Greg Ives comes from a season at the helm of the No. 5 Nationwide Series car to take the reins of the No. 88 team. Ives knows a bit about championships. He directed young Chase Elliott to both the NNR driver’s title (the youngest in NASCAR history for a major touring series) and Rookie of the Year honors in 2014. Before that, he was an engineer with Jimmie Johnson’s team. 

Those are some great credentials.

Working with second-generation driver Elliott was good experience for Ives. There were great expectations attached to young Elliott’s success this past season: from his father the great NASCAR legend Bill Elliott, his sponsor NAPA Auto Parts (that almost left the sport after the Michael Waltrip Racing scandal from 2013) and team owners Dale Earnhardt Jr. (his Nationwide team) and Rick Hendrick, who is prepping a seat at HMS for him.

In 2015, Ives will be exchanging one pressure cooker situation for another, because all eyes will again be on the No. 88.

Perhaps the most important element for success for Earnhardt Jr. and Ives will be how they work together as a team. Earnhardt Jr. told FoxSports.com about how Letarte not only made him a better driver, but how he made him a better person. 

The ingredients to make that winning product will once again be there with the No. 88 team next season. How those ingredients work together under the guidance of Ives is still to be seen. In our own lives, we take for granted that if we work with the best ingredients, the results will be just as we would like them to be.

Sometimes that’s not how things work out.

There are variables like attitude and execution. These too will factor into the success or failure of Earnhardt’s season in 2015.

He came close to the top this year. Very close.

It’s been said that experience trumps youthful exuberance. With Earnhardt Jr. getting older, his chances of winning a Sprint Cup title get more and more difficult, as the ranks of younger and arguably more fearless drivers in the Cup series grow larger every year. He’ll need to step up his game.

And Junior will need to use every bit of the knowledge he’s gained in his years in the NASCAR Cup Series to regain his place back in the Chase in 2015. 

All quotes are taken from official NASCAR, team and manufacturer media releases unless otherwise stated. 

Bob Margolis is a member of the National Motorsports Press Association and has covered NASCAR, IndyCar, the NHRA and Sports Cars for more than two decades as a writer, television producer and on-air talent. 

On Twitter: @BobMargolis