Junior appreciates contract extension

Who could have guessed that job security would have such a profound effect on Dale Earnhardt Jr.?

Certainly, in this economic climate most people are concerned about future employment. But Earnhardt, 36, appeared grateful and humbled that his current team owner, Rick Hendrick, extended his contract to 2017.

“I’m excited about it and happy that I’ve got a place to work,” Earnhardt said. “I’m happy to have Rick’s commitment and hopefully me and Steve can continue to grow and start to do what we want to do on the racetrack.

“I’m looking forward to it, man. It kind of puts it at ease there a little bit.”

Earnhardt took a leap of faith when he left his father’s company — Dale Earnhardt Inc. — to drive for Hendrick Motorsports. While Hendrick could certainly provide the driver with championship-caliber equipment, leaving DEI took Earnhardt out of his comfort zone.

At DEI, he didn’t have to worry about what management or fellow workers thought. He didn’t have to worry about performances or placating sponsors. Junior basically just had to show up and drive.

“Driving with my family was really easy; I did not have to worry about job security,” Earnhardt said. “I was around a lot of people that were relatives, longtime family friends, and that was a very easy, relaxed situation.

“When I drove the red (No.) 8 car, you know if we had a bad race or something, I mean, you know you would hear from fans or critics, media would point it out, but really you didn’t care too much because your family wasn’t going to talk crap about you behind your back. You just said we had a bad race and we’d go back and race the next week. It was just easier to rebound.

“Now when I have a bad race, I take it home and it will last a few days 'til I get over it. I wonder whether the right people are still behind me, whether I have given them reason to doubt me, those kinds of things. When you are racing with family, you just don’t have those kinds of worries. And the job security thing was awesome.”

Despite earning NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver Award for eight straight years, Earnhardt has endured much criticism. Although his cousin/crew chief, Tony Eury Jr., moved along with Earnhardt to HMS initially to facilitate the transition, the support the pair was hoping for simply wasn’t there.

Inevitably, it took three years with one win and just one Chase berth with Junior and the No. 88 Chevrolet for Hendrick to shake things up. With the exception of the five-time championship No. 48 team and driver Jimmie Johnson, Hendrick played musical chairs with his other three drivers, moving each to a new squad and crew chief. Hendrick selected the affable Steve Letarte for Earnhardt.

And while the win column is still empty, Earnhardt had solid results the first half of the season and has been in the Chase Zone for all but three of the first 24 races. He is currently ninth in the standings, with 18 points between him and 10th-place Tony Stewart and a 39-point cushion separating Earnhardt from 11th-place Brad Keselowski.

Still, understandably, Earnhardt is far from satisfied with his performance.

“I would give me barely a passing grade at this time,” Earnhardt said. “I’m not content at all and I feel like I’ve been given some really good opportunities there and just haven’t been able to capitalize on it. Haven’t been able to go to the race track and get on the race track and go fast.

“This year, we made a lot of changes in the offseason. I’ve said that damn sentence so many damn times this year, but we had a lot of changes and this year things started to swing upward for me and I started to feel like we might be on the right track and my confidence is up and I feel good about what’s going on there.

“I like to see how we can do in the future over the next 12 to 18 months, what kind of growth me and Steve have. I really, really like working with him, and I’m satisfied with the performance that he has and how he works and goes about running his race team. I’m satisfied with the way his cars drive. We just need to find that little bit extra and we’ve had it at times this year and we’ve had some pretty fast cars at times, but rarely do people really recall that.”

Drivers are considered as good as their last race. And Earnhardt has posted just one top-10 finish in his past 10 starts. With two races before the final Chase field is determined, Earnhardt will need solid finishes at Atlanta and Richmond to remain planted among the top 10.

Earnhardt qualified 29th at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday — a sharp contrast after winning the pole on the 1.5-mile track last spring. Fortunately for the driver, AMS remains one of his favorite tracks.

“We really like racing at Atlanta, it’s a fun race track,” Earnhardt said. “Hopefully it will be a pretty productive weekend for us. It’s not just to help us along in the Chase, but we need to improve on performance as a whole. We’re looking to try to do that this weekend.”