Driver Stats: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Yes, he sits in 24th place in the standings currently. But Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the #88 National Guard/Amp Energy Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports,  gets the spotlight this non-race week because he is still #1 with a bullet in NASCAR fans' hearts. After all, he has won the most popular driver award for the last six years running. There is a sizable minority, of course, who hate him because they think his name and not his talent got him to where he is today. From what I've seen, he may not ever approach the 7 Cup-series championships his late father achieved, but he is a decent driver and a pretty likable guy.

Dale Jr. won two then-Busch series championships before entering the Cup series in 1999. Since his first full season in 2000, he has 18 wins, 8 poles, 86 top 5's, 138 top 10's, and has finished four seasons in the top 10 rankings. He just may be the best active driver on restrictor-plate tracks, and he has won at least one race every season except for 2007--his last season with his father's old team DEI (where he drove the iconic red #8 Budweiser car). 

There's no denying the impact his father had on "June-bug's" career. And if fans of his father's switched their allegiance over to him after his father's death at Daytona, so what? If I had been a NASCAR fan in 2001, I probably would have cheered Jr. on too as he won the July Daytona race the same year, and again at Talladega, the site of his father's last victory. The fans voted the Intimidator most popular driver posthumously, so when Jr. started winning the contest they became the first father-and-son team ever to do so. I can't even begin to imagine what it's like racing the same tracks your father dominated, and always being compared, usually unfavorably, to him.

Dale Jr. hasn't been the most consistent driver lately, and everyone expects more out of him since his move to the dominant Hendrick organization. I'm not a diehard member of Junior Nation, but I enjoy watching him race when he's on, and I like hearing his opinion. Love him or hate him, when Jr. speaks everyone listens, and most of the time he's fair-minded and pretty funny. Here's hoping he settles down and gets his season back on track, for the good of the sport and its loyal fan base.