So much ink has been spilled this season with the drama surrounding Dale Earnhardt and the No. 8 Budweiser team on and off the track, it seems wasteful to recount all of the drama and excitement mixed with heartache and hard-feelings. So, we’ve boiled down the b.s. into a list of numbers that sheds a faint light on the season past.
While mechanical issues and strange crashes (a rear wheel falls off while racing for the win on the next-to-last lap at Atlanta?!) meant they tied for the league’s worst mark and set a team record for DNFs (Did Not Finish), Dale Jr. and the bunch ran up front until they stopped - and NASCAR’s esoteric “loop data” statistics prove that fact. Despite the troubles, the team and driver ranked among the top-10 overall in 11 separate statistical categories - but the most telling stat of the season is Dale Jr’s last-place finish (by a wide margin) among every driver who started a Cup race in 2007 in the category called “closers,” which reflects the success (or lack thereof) in the final 10 percent of all races.
Overall, it closes nine great seasons together for Dale Earnhardt Inc., Budweiser and Dale Jr., which will live forever in NASCAR history.
—–
2007 By the Numbers
***All esoteric stats courtesy of NASCAR’s Loop Data compilations. Don’t worry, we don’t know what many of them mean either.***
ONE:
The team scored one Bud Pole Award - their first since Kansas in 2002 - at the Pocono race in August… Dale Jr. ranked first for the season among all drivers in the “fastest drivers on the straightaways” category. The DEI engines may have been brittle, but they were wicked fast while intact.
TWO:
The season’s best finish for the Budweiser team was second-place at Pocono in August… The Bud boys ranked second among all teams for “fastest green flag speed” during the entire season… The Budweiser team also had two crew chiefs this season, as Tony Eury Jr. headed the corps for much of the season, while Tony Gibson became the man in charge for six races mid-year (after Eury Jr. was suspended for, ahem, a ‘technical violation’) and then again for the final seven races of the season as Eury Jr. departed for a new position elsewhere.
FOUR:
Dale Jr. ranked fourth overall in “fastest drivers early in a run” for the season - the same ranking he found himself in for “fastest drivers late in a run…” This corresponds to a similar ranking in “fastest drivers on a restart” for the entire season… Dale Jr. finished fourth position on the “fastest speed in traffic” chart… The team ran four memorable special paint schemes: two military-themed cars (camouflage and red-white-blue in honor of America’s troops around the world), a retro-1957 Chevy scheme and a white Elvis Presley Special in September….
FIVE:
Dale Jr. was fifth best among all drivers in “fastest laps run,” as he was the swiftest of all drivers for 560 laps this year… He managed to rank fifth among all drivers for “laps run in the top-15″ despite nine DNFs… Dale Jr. is expected to receive his fifth-consecutive “Most Popular Driver” award this week at the NASCAR festivities in New York City.
SIX:
A six-pack of Budweiser would taste nice right about now.
SEVEN:
The team recorded seven top-five finishes in 2007.
EIGHT:
Driver No. 8 ranked eighth overall in “Driver Rating” (a complex mix of all NASCAR loop stat categories)… He also ranked eighth in “average running position” for the season despite the many early departures.
NINE:
The team suffered nine Did-Not-Finish results in 36 races - tied for the most among all teams. This is more than any other season for Dale Jr. - and marks almost 25% of his career mark of 40 DNF’s… Dale Jr. was ninth overall in “miles led” for the season… and ninth among all drivers for “laps on the lead lap.”
TEN:
Dale Jr. was tenth overall for “laps led” as he headed the field for 433 circuits in 2007… He was also tenth among “fastest drivers in the turns.”
11:
Dale Jr. was 11th overall in “quality passes made,” which are passes under green flag conditions among the top-15 positions.
12:
The Budweiser team had twelve top-10 finishes.
16:
Dale Jr. finished the season 16th in Nextel Cup points, tying his rookie season for lowest season ranking…. He led in 16 of the 36 races.
69:
Dale Jr. ranked last (69th) among all Cup drivers in the “Closers” category - the gain/loss ratings in the final 10% of each race. His rating of -104 was 26 spots worse than the next closest competitor.
291:
Dale Jr’s career in the No. 8 Budweiser car included 291 Cup starts… He had 17 victories, 76 top-fives, 120 top-10s, and led 133 of those races while grabbing seven Bud Pole Awards.
5,221,970:
The prize money earned by the team (before the year-end Nextel points bonus money)…. Amazingly this number matched exactly the number of rumors and hyperbolic media reports about the driver and team this season.
Countless:
The fond memories since the team’s Cup debut in May, 1999, and the numbers of devout fans gained in that time.
[DEI]
Bookmark to:
- Report: 51% ownership to Dale Earnhardt, Jr agreed to by DEI but…?
- Drifting - D1 Grand Prix Review-PlayStation 2
- Champ Car to Review San Jose Pit Lane Incident Between Paul Tracy and Alex Tagliani
- Dale Earnhardt to be honored today
- GM Statement on Dale Jr./DEI
Yep! The author said a lot of “ink has been spilled” about this person this year – and they just wasted a bunch more with this useless article above also… Gee, do ya think you could have found a better “pouty-face”, “victimized” & “forlorn” picture above to represent Junior for your waste of an article??
Let’s recap Junior’s train wreck a bit more accurately… shall we?
FIRST: Junior; the pornography-pimping pervert (after turning his house into a XXX-porn studio a while back) … publicly blackmails his late father’s business partner (and) rightful owner of DEI into forfeiting their entire life’s ownership and equity at the start of 2007. The punk can’t intimidate on the track like his dad, so in his weak and feeble ways, he used his superficial popularity, along with the bias/sexist pig motor-sports media as a weapon against his owner and threatened leaving DEI if she resisted forfeiture of a 110 million dollar company to his outrageous demands [deliberate blackmail].
SECOND: To help facilitate his deliberate agenda of deceit, he also creates and (deliberately) times the launching of his “Infield Parking” web forum to coincide with his planned intent to publicly blackmail his owner. During the first half of 2007, Junior parades around the entire country, on every TV show, interview and public appearance – telling everyone listening to “join-up” to his site while continuously announcing the web address. The site quickly reaches 25,000 accounts by April – and soon after grows to 40,000+ accounts, achieving his intent to organize a feeding frenzy of misinformation…
All spring, summer and fall, Junior spends enormous amounts of time monitoring the hyper-sensitive misinformation and hate that he is fostering against his owner, while he deliberately line-drops using the media, who lap-up every “planned & contrived” false seed he sews for their pen to record. Essentially, Junior & sister Kelly spend more than 9 months deliberately going public and fanning the flames of their fan-base to foster a public movement in his favor, which are intended to cause his owner to submit to his blackmail attempts through “fear of him leaving”.
To help “aid & abet” his near-criminal conspiracy, Junior (of course) hires Infield Parking “moderators” to run his site, who are nothing more than bias, shrewd, paid hacks & henchmen that deliberately allow the most vile and libelous charges to be written against his innocent owner – but they also deliberately sensor the slightest “unfavorable” truths written about Junior; thereby helping to foster a totally innocent – but false image of him.
During this time span – Junior & Kelly are known to be monitoring the fathoms of falsehoods being typed in thousands of threads hour after hour, day after day – and month after month on his site by his “Third Reich” known as “Jr. Nation”.
THIRD: To help play the maniacal emotions of his fans, Junior casts himself as a “mistreated victim”, as he lies to the world [attempting to fool everyone] into thinking that DEI is a waste pit of outdated equipment with false charges that his owner has done nothing to keep up with the industry… but of course the only difference between DEI and a (small percentage) of other teams is the absence of a 7-post shaker rig, which Junior doesn’t even understand or comprehend… nor is such a machine even necessary. it is a luxury and not even owned by more than 1/3 of the other teams in existence… but eventually we learn of Junior’s confessions in the excerpts of the post-qualifying press conference transcripts from June; where he admits he’s never even seen the inside of another race shop other than DEI in his entire driving career.
FOUTH: Junior’s maniacal blackmail effort fails when his owner [appropriately & properly] stands-up to him and requires him to pay fair market value for his undeserved equity.
FIFTH: 8 days after Junior’s over-hyped, over-publicized decision to become a free agent, the world hears the announcement of the DEI/RCR Engine Technologies merger, which is a huge, long-term vision that press releases state has been in the development planning for nearly a year already – proving Junior to be an ignorant, immature fool.
SIXTH: Within six weeks of all his “run-down DEI” story-telling, the world learns of the Ginn acquisition by DEI, which is a team/real estate growth intent that has been planned by his owner dating back to 12 months prior when she attempted to buy the Robert Yates team – further proving Junior to be an ignorant, immature fool.
SEVENTH: One week after that, the world learns of DEI’s Partnership Alliance Program with Clemson University, which press releases clearly state his owner has been working on for nearly 18 months prior – again destroying the last of what little credibility the fool [Junior] had left…
EIGHTH: Obviously… Junior & Kelly were either lying about their owner, or else they were unable to be trusted with all the sensitive business development plans for fear of their conflicting relationships and big mouths spreading it to the wrong ears… [Definitely both].
(Oh, but of course, the sexist pigs in the media conveniently chose to burry all this in their bias writing talents… )
NINTH: Then – after all his deceit and manipulation throughout the year, Junior [once again] deliberately miss-uses his lynch mob fan-base [and dumb-ass media wonks] by launching another phony movement to force his owner to cede and dismantle a significant DEI organizational symbol to him [the #8] – all to admit and acknowledge after yet another month of underserved maligning about his owner - that he knew all along he would not be able to obtain such a narcissistic expectation… (Obviously, this was another admitted public relations stunt to do jealous harm to his owner’s good reputation)
TENTH: Meanwhile – for his intended personal gain, Junior deliberately allows his personal attack machine known as “Infield Parking” to continuously rage wildly out of control with the most viscous and maligning lies & character defamation against his owner for over 10 months non-stop… until another “fateful & phony” day came on august 24th when he [once again] put on a face of “false piety” and spoke contrived words of self-righteousness, by telling people to “lay-off Teresa” while being interviewed at Bristol… and this done, only a few weeks after deliberately running his mouth in the media criticizing and falsely stereotyping the very same owner with his usual maniacal line-dropping to fans…
ELEVENTH: Blown engines throughout the season? Yes - 2 or 3 were definitely due to Junior’s reckless shifting/driving habits he’s notorious for. A couple can easily be traced [Talladega] to a temporary lapse in technical judgment due to Ritchie Gilmore’s cognitive impairment from his brain aneurysms he collapsed from at the track that weekend… and a couple were merely the usual freak occurrences that are periodically typical in racing…
Add it all up – and the sport of NASCAR has just witnessed the biggest public relations scandal done by a driver in the 60-year history of our sport – and his Third Reich fan-base are accomplices to his crimes. Both, are a complete disgrace to NASCAR.
Junior’s other “mis-haps” are a mere mix of his own reckless stupidity, combined with a dose of Judgment – and there’s a higher power in heaven that is patently furious with this punk for his crimes against an honorable, innocent woman [Teresa].
Too bad a select group of media have been villainous accomplices to Junior’s crimes too. Most still haven’t awakened to his malevolent scandal they’ve played an unwitting role in all year…
I wonder what fate awaits each of them…
Can’t wait for the 2008 year to start. Junior’s judgment is just beginning…
Bad things happen to bad people. Goodbye punk. Junior deserves all the trouble that is headed straight for him; and he is definitely a goner…
Ho Hum!!!
Season in Review: Kaboom! Crash! Kaboom! Crash! Repeat until total equals 36.
damm rick! i think you need sum pro help! did you sit up all night thinking of all that bs of what? just wait and see, he will kick @SS NEXT YEAR!!
YOU KNOW RICK YOU HAVE SOME NERVE PICKING ON DALE JR. FIRST OF ALL ITS NOT RIGHT AND I WILL STAND UP FOR JUNE BUG 100%. EVERYONE HAS BAD DAYS AND ALOT OF THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE BUT LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING DALE JR WILL HAVE A BETTER CAR AND A BETTER TEAM. AND HE WILL KICK @SS. I CAN NOT STAND ANYONE SAYING ANYTHING BAD ABOUT DALE JR. HELL I LOVE HIM TO DEATH AND I WILL BE DAMMED IF YOUR GOING TO SAY BAD THINGS ABOUT HIM. I LIVE IN OCALA FLORIDA AND I GO TO THE RACES AS MUCH AS I CAN AND I GET UPSET WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS TO JUNE BUG. I EVEN CRY WHEN HE WRECKS OR SOMETHING HAPPENS BUT THATS BECAUSE I AM A TRUE FAN OF HIS AND I WILL FOLLOW HIM WHEREEVER HE GOES. SO GO PICK ON SOME OTHER DRIVER AND LEAVE MY JUNE BUG ALONE. THANK YOU.
LOVE YA JUME BUG GO #88