DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – As far as Dale Earnhardt Jr. is concerned, the credit for his thrilling Daytona victory goes to the men and women back at Hendrick Motorsports headquarters.
“If you think about our history over the last two years, the 88‑48 shop has built, in my opinion, two of the best restrictor plate cars in the sport in the last two years,” he said. “Fortunately, yet unfortunately, we won the Daytona 500 with one of them where we didn't get to use it again the rest of the year.”
That 2014 Daytona 500 win saw Earnhardt lead a race-high 54 laps en route to Victory Lane.
His win at Talladega earlier this season, when he led a race-high 67 laps, and Monday morning’s trip to Victory Lane at Daytona after leading 96 circuits showed the advantage that the No. 88 Chevrolet SS gave the driver.
“The car that I had tonight and the car we won the 500 with is exceptional and extraordinary compared to the rest of the competition, for whatever reason. I don't know how to build them, but they do,” he said. “The car that we won Talladega with and won with here tonight is another example or a carbon copy performance‑wise to the Daytona winner. So in the last two years this team has built two of the best cars.”
Earnhardt said he felt like the car would do whatever he wanted all night long.
“When we can move from seventh to first in a matter of a lap or two, that's because the car can sustain the run,” he said. “You know, I side draft a guy, get away from him, then side draft the next guy, get away from him, jump in front of this guy to get the push. You've got to do all these things that's sort of like playing Frogger and you've got to time everything in order to get across. That's what it's like when you're passing out there. You've got to do everything just right, but the car has got to be able to help you, and the car is probably 80 percent of it.”
For that reason, Earnhardt was confident that he could find the front no matter how far back he was shuffled during restarts, and when the race came down to a green-white-checkered finish, he felt his lead was secure.
“I felt pretty good about it, to be honest with you,” he said. “Normally I'm a nervous wreck on those green‑white‑checkers but knowing how good our car was I felt like if I could get clear, I should be able to do everything I needed to do. The car was capable of doing everything it needed to do, so I felt pretty comfortable, to be honest with you.”
Still, Earnhardt acknowledged that any time a driver like Jimmie Johnson is behind you, nothing is locked in until the checkered flag waves. But he was able to hold off his teammate to take home his second win of the 2015 season.
“The car is outstanding, and once it starts to get a run, if we don't get a good block thrown on us, it's going to keep that run going and keep passing cars up until we get to the leader,” he said. “So it's a pretty phenomenal race car.”