NASCAR Cup
Dover: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Preview
Budweiser NASCAR Winston Cup Race Preview The Race What: MBNA Platinum 400 Where: Dover Downs, Dover, DE When: Sunday, June 4, 2000 Watch: TNN - The Nashville Network, 12:30 p.m. Eastern TNN will televise the Bud Pole ...
Edited: Apr 15, 2002, 11:45 PM
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Budweiser NASCAR Winston Cup Race Preview
The Race
What: MBNA Platinum 400
Where: Dover Downs, Dover, DE
When: Sunday, June 4, 2000
Watch: TNN - The Nashville Network, 12:30 p.m. Eastern
TNN will televise the Bud Pole qualifying session on a tape-delayed basis Saturday, June 3.
Quotes from Dale Earnhardt Jr.
"Because we had success there in the Busch Series, I think we'll roll off the trailer with some confidence - we expect to be a top 10 car. It's the same way we felt at Texas or Richmond or Charlotte. We need a strong finish because we want to be on the stage (top 10 in points) in New York at the end of the year. We need to keep an eye on Matt (Kenseth) as well - we've gotta keep that rookie points race close."
Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Dover
Career Winston Cup Starts: --
Career Busch Series Starts: 4
Best Start: 3rd (Fall, 1999)
Best Finish: 1st (Spring, 1998 & 1999)
-- Dale Jr. won the June Busch Series race at Dover the last two seasons, including his second career victory in 1998. In his brief stint in the Busch Series, he won twice at Dover, Gateway International Raceway near St. Louis, and Richmond (Va.). Earnhardt Jr. has already won again at Richmond in a Winston Cup car.
Enough about Dale Jr, what about the Beer?!
At the age of 25, Dale Jr. has won two NASCAR championships and two Winston Cup races, making him one of the most successful young drivers in the 50-year history of NASCAR. In relation to the history of beer, Anheuser-Busch is also a young pup. A-B has been brewing Budweiser for more than 120 years, but that is a mere speed-bump on the long road back more than 8,000 years ago. Way back when, Egyptians knew how to brew beer, using a natural fermentation process similar to the methods still used today.
What to Watch
The difficult Dover circuit has some colorful nicknames: "the Monster Mile" and "White Lightning" are the most prevalent. Like a larger and faster version of the Bristol bull-ring, the treacherous concrete high-banks seem to suit the aggressive young Earnhardt. He won twice at Dover in the NASCAR Busch Series, and he enters this weekend's action as a hot property, falling a few laps short of a Cup clean-sweep for the month of May.
After leading 175 laps of the Coca-Cola marathon, Earnhardt Jr. has led 362 laps in the first 12 races of 2000, second best among all Winston Cup drivers. Earnhardt Jr. has led each of the races on the look-alike 1.5-mile ovals at Atlanta, Texas, Las Vegas and Charlotte.
The fourth-place finish in the 600 was the worst finish of the month for Dale Jr. He won at Richmond, and then finished third in the first two segments of the Winston before winning the final ten-lap dash for more than $500,000 in NASCAR's all-star race.
Earnhardt Jr's success is apparently a good sign for the TV ratings of Winston Cup racing. The prime-time cablecast of The Winston was the most-watched cable show during its time slot, with more than 4.2 million viewers, an increase of nearly 10 percent versus 1999.
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