DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Though Sunday – or in this case, Monday morning – is when the winner is determined, the rest of the weekend is just as important.
No. 88 crew chief Greg Ives said that the team’s performance on Friday set the tone for what was to come – and serves as a lesson for future weeks.
“I've been kind of preaching that to our guys, to myself and to the media throughout the year of if we start qualifying better, we'll end up having more success and be able to dictate some of our pit strategy off of that,” he said.
This weekend at Daytona, Saturday’s qualifying was cancelled due to inclement weather, so it was Friday’s practice session that proved crucial. Ives said the No. 88 team was anticipating that could potentially be the case.
And it earned Earnhardt the pole position.
“We were able to do that by setting a fast lap in practice, one, expecting it to rain out Saturday, and plans don't always come together, and they did, so we were able to get that No. 1 pit stall and we were able to win from the pole,” he said.
“It's definitely something that we need to drive home through our guys, through myself, through Dale, to make sure we do our jobs on Friday so it makes the Sunday win even better.”