Dale Earnhardt Jr.: NASCAR Chase or No Chase

At the beginning of the year, I said I’d give Dale Earnhardt Jr. til Atlanta to show me if he was going to be a contender this year.

After Atlanta, I am seeing signs toward a positive.

At the season-opening Daytona 500, he qualified well—second—and made a late charge through the field to finish second. That late charge and qualifying position equaled a lot to his fanbase, as it showed that the potential was still there—and he could make the right moves as a driver.

At Auto Club Speedway, he didn’t have a good showing, as he finished in the 20s after struggling all race long. This caused a step back in the process, as all that hope that had built up at Daytona was shot down.

At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Earnhardt showed a lot more promise than the week before, as he qualified third and finished 17th.

I know a lot of people would call that disappointing; however, for a team that had an average of 22.2 last year on the intermediate tracks and finished 25th in points, it was a small improvement. The team may have fallen back in the race a little, but the qualifying performance left a huge implant on everybody.

At Atlanta Motor Speedway, the most promise shown through, as Earnhardt qualified on the pole and was running in the top 10 til the tire problem. The pole qualifying run proved that the No. 88 team had the speed and cars—it just needed to work toward race day moves next.

For the race, some may say it did equal disappointment by just viewing the finish and a general look at how the team ran, but there was some promise beneath it. Normally, the team would fall back to the late teens to early 20s—yet at the time of the first problem, the team was running seventh.

The problem plagued Earnhardt all day, as he was always pitting before the lead lap cars and staying out on cautions to try to get the wave around to work in his favor.

As Rick Hendrick said earlier this year with the No. 88 team, “When the car is running good, the pit crew doesn’t do good. When the pit crew does good, they get bit by bad luck.”

In this case, the pit crew and car were good, but the set-up just didn’t sit well with the tires.

Despite all that and with the wreck at the end, the team managed a 15th-place run—turning a bad day into a decent day, which is the sign of a championship team.

This may not be the dream start to a year per se, but it is a start—to say the least. However, with this start, can Earnhardt make the Chase?

Well, he currently sits 13th, less than 10 points out of the Chase—so I’d say he definitely has a shot.

The next five or six races will be the telling sign. By the end of April, can the team finish in the top 10? Top five? Or even get a win? That question will be answered in the only way possible—on the track.