Michigan memories mean a lot to Junior
BROOKLYN, Mich. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. was racing for the win in a 1999 International Race of Champions event at Michigan.
One problem: The driver he was challenging was in no mood to let him pass.
“Dad drove to the bottom, so I just went around a little bit higher and it stuck, and I got along his outside,” Earnhardt recalled of his father, who was killed in a crash two years later at the Daytona 500. “I was going by, and he hit me.”
Father beat son by 0.007 second on one of many memorable days at Michigan International Speedway for Junior, whose farewell tour is passing through the track this weekend. He won NASCAR Cup Series races at MIS in 2008 and 2012, and he’ll try to add another victory today.
Those were Earnhardt’s only wins in the Cup Series from 2007 to ’13, and the latter snapped a 143-race losing streak. But his memories in Michigan extend further back than that.
The exciting IROC finish in ’99 included some contact between Junior’s car and his father’s, a fun storyline if there ever was one. Later that year, the younger Earnhardt pulled away from Jeff Gordon — who had won the Cup Series title the previous two seasons — for a win in a second-tier NASCAR Busch Series race at MIS.
“It seemed like only me and him were racing each other for the win. I was very proud of that because I thought he was the best in the sport at the time,” Earnhardt said. “It was like beating Jimmie Johnson if he came down to the Xfinity Series. So that was a big deal for us.”
By the time Earnhardt ended his long drought in 2012 at MIS, he was no longer an up-and-comer in his mid-20s. He won four more Cup Series races in 2014 and three in 2015.
But he has not won since then, and he has only four top-10 finishes this year. This past week, 2014 Cup Series champion Kevin Harvick suggested the inability of Earnhardt — NASCAR’s most popular driver for more than a decade — to achieve more success has hindered the sport’s growth. Earnhardt countered that he is proud of what he has accomplished and was disappointed by comments he considered “hurtful.”
Earnhardt has been plenty competitive at MIS over the years. In fact, only two active drivers — Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth — have more Cup Series wins here. Earnhardt will start today in the middle of the grid after qualifying 19th Friday.
“We’ve got some really good memories here. It’s been a fun track,” he said. “There has been some conversation about the 1.5-mile tracks with the words ‘cookie cutter’ and all that. That’s been a conversation for a couple of decades now.
“But this place here is, to me, the standard for the 1.5-mile or two-mile race track. This place is so much fun to race on for a driver. It’s a great race track.”