JOLIET, Ill. – For the past three days, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been fine-tuning at Chicagoland Speedway.
The driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet SS took part in a three-day tire test at the track, and it gave him an opportunity to work on the various new racing packages NASCAR has implemented for tracks like Indianapolis, Michigan, Darlington and Richmond in the process.
“Every package is going to lend itself to different drivers, and that's the same way with the racetracks,” Earnhardt said. “The same thing that makes a great race at Kentucky might not make a great race at Indy or Michigan.”
He said he is a proponent of the rules changes, as it “makes the racing more interesting.” He credited NASCAR for being willing to give different packages a try, and was grateful he had the opportunity to test them out on the racetrack.
“It's a great time to be involved in the sport,” he said. “For me, it's exciting to go through these -- this is a three-day test. Normally I hate testing, but it's been fun trying to learn and understand it. I'm excited just to see what happens, whether this stuff works, fails, whatever. But it's fun to go through it. It's fun to sort of rearrange the furniture in the living room, so to speak, to something different.
“It's been the same-old, same-old for so long, so this is kind of neat and exciting and unprecedented, really.”
If the high-drag package at Indianapolis and Michigan works as planned, NASCAR believes there will be more passing. Earnhardt said that if there truly is much faster closing distance from the second car in the draft to the leader, “it should be pretty wild.”
“This is a big deal, really, to change the whole thing for everybody at this track and then try something so extreme at another track. What they're trying at Michigan and Indy, it's really extreme and should really alter the racing and what it looks like there,” he said. “What it'll look like, I don't know. But it's not going to be the same. Fans are going to tune in to see that -- see whatever it is that happens. That's great."
As for where the No. 88 team stands with just eight races remaining until the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Earnhardt said that no one is ever fully content. Even with two wins, there’s always room to find more speed or improve on short tracks, intermediate tracks and superspeedways.
The three-day test at Chicago can only serve to help that cause.
"We definitely know we need to work and improve,” he said. “(No. 88 team crew chief) Greg (Ives) is getting better every week. He's learning a lot. This is a great opportunity for him as well, these three days, really cramming and trying to get everything we can to accelerate our learning. Doing whatever we can to get as good and fast as we can. Hopefully it works out."