Daytona Beach, Florida – with one above the full moon and the sun that does not flow on the horizon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was held near his team on Wednesday morning and watched the first car of the JR Cup Motorsports was discharged in the Speedway International Daytona garage.
Earnhardt released his phone to capture the moment. The owner of the car, Rick Hendrick, had encouraged him to do so.
When Jr Motorsports – which participated for the first time in the Xfinity series in 2005 – announced on January 15 that it would align its first cup entrance and would seek to qualify for Daytona 500 with Justin Allgaier, Earnhardt promised Being there when the garage opened its doors.
Fourteen o’clock after walking with its crew and car No. 40 in the team garage stand on Wednesday morning, Earnhardt mixed in the crowd on Pit Road and melted after Allgaier missed a place in the Daytona 500 per eight hundredths of a second.
“I think he is a bit intimidated at the moment,” said Kelley Earnhardt about his brother Dale after his qualification.
One of the nine non -mapped cars has entered, there is no guarantee that the Earnhardt car will be on the grid for Daytona 500 on Sunday.
Everything is not lost. Allgaier has another chance of doing 500 in the qualification races on Thursday.
About 45 minutes after Martin Truex Jr. and Jimmie Johnson obtained the two qualifying places for non -cardboard cars and forced Allgaier to wait one more night to find out if he will be in the 500, Dale Earnhardt Jr. provided A Edifying message on social networks.
“Damn, it would be good to register this evening. But we can come back tomorrow and run our way in Daytona 500 in a double. Living the dream.”
He and Austin Cindric are in the front row for the 67th Great American Race.
Said Kelley that the team is faced: “(Thursday) worries me because everything is not under our control.”
This is always the case when writing tracks. An error that a few upcoming rows can lead to an accident that collects several cars behind. This could change who makes Daytona 500 this year.
But as the faster third of the nine non -carta cars, Allgaier has several ways to do the Daytona 500. If he finishes the highest among the non -mapped cars of his race, he is on the ground. If Johnson or Martin Truex Jr. ends the highest among non -mapa cars in their qualification race, Allgaier is in Daytona 500.
Allgaier is expected to start 17th among the 23 cars in the first qualification race (7 p.m. he Thursday on FS1). The other non -mapped cars of its race are: Truex (from the 12th), Helio Castroneves (20th), Chandler Smith (22nd) and JJ Yeley (23rd).
The former NASCAR Cup champions qualify on speed to claim two of the available spots for open cars.
However, Allgaier came 0.08 seconds for not having to worry about Thursday qualifying races. Where does this difference come from on a 2.5 mile track?
“When I look at the (data), it almost seems perhaps that we caught a little headwind on the frontstretch, maybe we have slowed down,” Allgaier told NBC Sports.
Allgaier then started looking towards the future.
“You cannot hang on to the effort today,” he said, “because you are still lucky to get it (Thursday).”
Wednesday’s result gives Dale Earnhardt Jr. another day to savor – as the owner of the Cup car – everything that is Daytona.
“Most car owners do not think it could be the one and only time they do it,” Earnhardt told NBC Sports last week of his desire to be in the garage, on the qualification grid And around the car and the team as much as possible in Daytona.
“Just in case we never come back to this situation or to this occasion to participate in a cup race, I want to make sure that there was nothing that exceeded me or that I couldn’t live.
“I miss all of this. I miss it as a driver. To present yourself in Daytona, what is the quality of our car? I watch the guys assemble for three months.
“How are we going to qualify?” How is he going to run? Standing on this grid, standing in this range for qualifying in Daytona, it’s just a special moment, while waiting for your opportunity to go, while waiting for your opportunity to go up.
“It is one of the great things to be a competitor, whether you are the driver, the team leader or the owner of the car, you are a competitor. I somehow miss the emotions you are going through, the ups, the stockings, the anxiety of performance and will we do it? Are we going to enter?
He will discover it Thursday evening.
