After Dale Earnhardt Jr. qualified 21st for the Dodge Dealers 400 and finished answering a variety of questions, it was time to get back to family business, including Earnhardt's 18-year-old nephew Jeffrey winning the pole for the Sunoco 150.
"That was cool, man," Earnhardt beamed. "I'm pretty proud. That's the car I drove in The Winston (Nextel All-Star Challenge). It's awesome that he and I will get to drive the same car."
Tony Eury Jr., who went the extra mile to build an especially light car last spring for the All-Star race, offered the used ride to Jeffrey's crew chief Clint "Clinker" Cramm, who massaged the former No. 8 Chevrolet into the No. 1 Tracker Boats/Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet for the Busch East Series in NASCAR's Grand National Division.
The younger Earnhardt topped the speed chart with a lap of 151.413 mph, 23.776 seconds. He finished the Sunoco 150 third behind Sean Caisse and series champ Joey Logano.
"I felt like we had the car to beat," said the grandson of seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt. "We were fast. Every time we got behind a car, we got a very bad air push. We'd run Logano down, get a bad air push and we'd play that game. I was terrible on restarts, and that's where it got us."
Nevertheless, he was proud to carry on the Earnhardt tradition behind the wheel of his famous uncle's car.
"It's a pretty nice car," Earnhardt said. "I was just panicking because it's one of the nicest cars we've got, and I didn't want to wreck it in practice. It showed it was a good car today, and we were there all day long. We just couldn't get it."
Possibly there could be an Earnhardt in the #8 again someday?
i watch speed a good bit and while ive never seen them broadcast a busch east race they do give coverage or make mention of outcome of races at times . should be coming soon as nascar steadily becomes more marketable on lower levels
