Dale Earnhardt Jr Post-Race Comments at Michigan

DALE EARNHARDT JR., NO. 88 NATIONAL GUARD YOUTH FOUNDATION CHEVROLET SS - SIDELINED WITH RIGHT-FRONT TIRE ISSUE ON LAP 135 – FINISHED 36TH:

ALL THE FANS WERE ON THEIR FEET AS YOU LED THIS RACE, AND THEN YOU WERE IN THE WALL AND BACK IN THE GARAGE:
“It’s just the tire; we’ve had a lot of problems with. I think this is the same tire we struggled with the last race. But, I don’t know, you know. It’s just kind of frustrating. It’s just bad luck. If we keep running like we’re supposed to run and like we’ve been running, we’ll get on into the Chase and not have to worry about it. But this bad luck, we need to shake that. We just can’t keep having this every week. It’s been biting us every week. So we’ll just have to see what happens.”

YOU ARE SEVENTH IN POINTS RIGHT NOW. LOOKING AT THE WAY YOU GUYS CAN RUN AND LOOKING AT THE BIG PICTURE WITH THREE RACES TO GO BEFORE THE CUTOFF, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE CHASE?
“There are guys in worst positions than us. We ain’t got to outrun just one guy; there’s a lot of guys. And all of them have got to have clean races, just like we do. I think we’ll be all right. We’re not an 11th place team. We’re a Top 5 team. We’re consistent. We’re more consistent than most. We’ve just got to shake this luck, whatever is going on; it’s something different every time. We’ve got good speed and we’ve just got to keep our head up and keep working hard and things will be all right.”

YOU ARE NOW 20 POINTS INSIDE THE TOP 10 IS THAT A CONCERN FOR YOU OR DO YOU STILL FEEL SOME WHAT COMFORTABLE? “I feel pretty good. I’ve been in tighter situations. I think if we just run as good as we can we will be fine. We are not an 11th place team. If we just run as good as we can we should be alright.” 

DID YOU HAVE ANY WARNING OR DID THE TIRE JUST BLOW? “Yeah, it was down on the splitter getting into the corner. I got it slowed down pretty good and then started getting close to the wall and put a little brake in it and it blew the tire out. It had a slow leak and I don’t know. We have had a lot of problems with this particular tire and it’s getting frustrating.” 

IS THE FACT THAT YOU ARE EVEN IN THIS SITUATION, YOU’VE HAD SUCH A GOOD SEASON THAT YOU WOULDN’T EVEN THINK THAT YOU WOULD HAVE HAD TO WORRY ABOUT RICHMOND IS IT DISAPPOINTING EVEN TO BE IN THIS POSITION? “No not really. It’s a competitive sport and we’ve got some good teams behind us. We are not sitting here with everybody in the distance. It’s just a little closer than we would like it to be, but it’s still 20 points is 20 points. That is half a race a little more than that so we got three to go we should be alright. If we keep having bad luck we can’t do nothing about that.”