Dale Jr.: "Give my dad a little more credit''

One of the many debates this week _ and even before Kyle Busch and Dale Jr. got together at Richmond _ is how Kyle is the next Dale Earnhardt.

 

While some Earnhardt fans will be upset with the comparison and others will say it's spot on, who better to ask than Dale Jr. on what he thinks of this debate. So I asked him Thursday after the first pratice session at Darlington.

 

This is what Dale Jr. said about the comparisons between his dad and Kyle Busch:

 

"He's fast, he's running well, he's quick, he's aggressive,'' Dale Jr. said. "This is Dale Earnhardt from '89 and earlier. Daddy quit doing that stuff after a while, I don't know. That's the way Dad raced and Kyle has that same style. He's very aggressive.''

 

Then I asked what about the attitude between the two and Earnhardt responded:

 

"Personality wise they're polar opposites. Give me a break. You know my dad better than that. Give my dad a little more credit. They didn't know him.''

 

So, there you go.

 

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Speeds are fast with the repaved track and drivers are already predicting little passing in Saturday night's race. This race typically has been single file but you could pass when the handling went away with the tire wear. Some drivers say that with the harder tire that the cars don't post their fastest lap until about 20 or so laps into a run. Thus everyone could be running about the same speed, leading to a race where there's less passing than normal. We'll see.

 

For a point of reference the track qualifying record is 173.797 mph by Ward Burton in March 1996.

 

Kyle Busch led the first practice session with a lap of 175.522 mph -- more than 1.5 mph better than the track record. Ten drivers bettered Burton's mark:

 

1. Kyle Busch ... 175.522

2. Denny Hamlin ... 174.885

3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. ... 174.780

4. Travis Kvapil ... 174.724

5. Tony Stewart ... 174.519

6. Greg Biffle ... 174.229

7. Joe Nemechek ... 174.037

8. Dave Blaney ... 174.025

9. Casey Mears ... 173.914

10. AJ Allmendinger ... 173.914

11. Martin Truex Jr. ... 173.742

12. Ryan Newman ... 173.644

13. Jimmie Johnson ... 173.295

14. Kasey Kahne ... 173.234

15. Kevin Harvick ... 173.216

16. Jeff Gordon ... 173.131

17. Juan Pablo Montoya ... 173.082

18. Kurt Busch ... 173.033

19. Elliott Sadler ... 173.015

20. Sterling Marlin ... 172.954

 

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What are we doing here?

 

That's the question Ryan Newman had after the first practice session Thursday. The day was added to the schedule since teams did not test here (except for the Goodyear test with Newman, Greg Biffle and Jeff Gordon).

 

"I don't think we needed to come here and test,'' Newman said. "We got the advantage of the Goodyear tire test, that was great. We race as a profession. We don't need to come here and waste our time on a Thursday.''

 

Newman also was against the Charlotte test earlier this week:

 

"It was not needed. No matter what, the strongest teams are always going to be the strongest teams whether you had two extra days to adapt or not. It might give some other guys a chance to catch up a little bit but that's not what we're here for.It's not let the other guys catch up. It's let's go race.''

 

I did talk to Bobby Labonte and ask him if Thursday was needed. He admitted he wondered why teams were here but didn't have as much of a problme with it.

 

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Last Saturday's Cup race at Richmond drew a 4.5 national rating, a 5 percent increase from last year.

 

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8:40 p.m. UPDATE

 

Thursday's final Cup practice session is over. AJ Allmendinger leads the way with a lap of 178.679 mph -- nearly 15 mph faster than last year's pole speed and about 5 mph faster than the track record.

 

Talked with John Darby, Cup series director, and asked him what he thought of the speeds. Here's what he said:

 

"It's much faster than what it was but I wouldn't put it in the column of ridiculous fast,'' he said. "We're comfortable enough in the tire that Goodyear brought. We did some pretty extensive testing and it's all worked out pretty favorably so far. One of the things that Darlington has as a characteristic is that typically everyone runs around the top of the race track, so if you are going to hit you're only going to travel about five feet before you do hit. All of that stuff kind of comes into play.''

 

SPEEDS

1. AJ Allmendinger ... 178.679

2. Dale Earnhardt Jr. ... 178.640

3. Dave Blaney ... 178.620

4. Kyle Busch ... 177.249

5. Greg Biffle ... 176.676

6. Johnny Sauter ... 176.555

7. Joe Nemechek ... 176.555

8. Sterling Marlin ... 176.460

9. Carl Edwards ... 176.252

10. Martin Truex Jr. ... 176.208

11. Denny Hamlin ... 176.201

12. Ryan Newman ... 176.195

13. Tony Stewart ... 175.924

14. Elliott Sadler ... 175.830

15. Jimmie Johnson ... 175.679

16. Casey Mears ... 175.566

17. Kurt Busch ... 175.453

18. Kasey Kahne ... 175.297

19. J.J. Yeley ... 175.222

20. David Reutimann ... 175.022

 

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