LOUDON, N.H.—You could argue that Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Joey Logano have nothing to lose in this year’s Chase because they’ve already lost it.
Both Earnhardt and Logano suffered engine failures last Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway, and their early exits from the first Chase race cost them dearly in the standings. Earnhardt is 53 points behind Chase leader Matt Kenseth, and Logano trails by 52 points.
That sort of ill fortune, says Jeff Gordon, can change your perspective on the Chase. He should know. In last year’s Chicagoland race, Gordon’s throttle stuck, and he pounded the outside wall—effectively dashing his hopes for a fifth Sprint Cup title.
“Instead of maybe having a game plan where you were going to try to fine tune a set-up, you can just go completely outside the box and just go for broke and make very gutsy calls on pit road,” Gordon said Friday before opening Cup practice for Sunday’s Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire. “You can be more aggressive as a driver. The engineers can be more aggressive in the set-up as well. …
“I think that they are looking at it like ‘Listen, unless something miraculous happens, we are not going to be back in this thing,’ to the level that they would like to be. I think there is a part of you that just says ‘’K, let’s just see how high up in points we can get,’ and there is a part of you that says, ‘We go for broke, and if we get on a heck of a roll, we can still do this’.
“You certainly never stop giving up hope.”
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
- NASCAR to debut new short track package at Phoenix - February 28, 2023
- The Wrench Who Stole Racing - December 16, 2022
- Matt DiBenedetto’s excellent run comes to abrupt, violent end - February 17, 2019
