Earnhardt looking to build resume at Martinsville on Sunday

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. has recorded several personal records at Martinsville Speedway, and the driver of the No. 88 AMP Energy/National Guard Chevrolet enters this weekend looking for his first win at the paperclip oval.

Earnhardt has scored a personal best eight top-five finishes during his 22 NASCAR Sprint Cup appearances at the .526-mile short-track. He also has eight top-five results at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway, Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Richmond (Va.) International Raceway and Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Earnhardt’s 848 laps led at the speedway are another personal best for the driver.  He has tallied 236 of those laps driving the No. 88 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. For Earnhardt, the rough qualities of the paper clip-shaped oval are what make Martinsville an interesting race.

“I like Martinsville a lot,” Earnhardt said. “There’s something about trying to get around the corner of that place that’s a lot of fun, and it’s just an interesting racetrack. Martinsville is a good short track, and there is a little bit of roughness to it.”

Steve Letarte, crew chief of the No. 88 Chevrolet, believes that trust and clear communication between driver and crew chief is what will give the No. 88 team a strong finish at Martinsville this weekend.

“There’s a lot of pit strategy that goes into Martinsville --you can take two tires, four tires, stay out. There are a lot of options there,” Letarte said. “The driver has to have a lot of trust in his crew chief and what he is telling him. It’s a hard track; it’s bumper to bumper all the way around. It’s hard for a driver to realize if he is on pace or where the leaders are. It is very important for Dale to trust me and what I’m asking of him. If he has confidence to do that then hopefully we can have something at the end.”

Pre-race coverage of the Martinsville event begins at 12:30 p.m. ET on FOX, and the green flag is scheduled to drop at 1 p.m.