Dale Earnhardt Jr crew chief, Tony Eury Jr. was shocked upon returning from the Sprint Cup test session at California Speedway to see Joey Arnold, one of his car setup specialists, working feverishly in the shop on one of the #88 cars. Arnold’s 5-year-old son, Cayden, had died just days beforehand.

“I said ‘Joey, what are you doing here?’” Eury said. “I mean, what do you say to a guy whose 5-year-old kid just died? I didn’t know. I couldn’t believe he was there.” Arnold’s response was one Eury won’t soon forget. “He said ‘This is my best chance to win the Daytona 500, and I want to be a part of it,’” Eury said.

Eury was so deeply impacted by the scope of that statement that his eyes welled with tears recounting it Sunday just before pole qualifying at Daytona. “His son had a lung issue, I think, and he couldn’t run from here to that generator,” Eury said, pointing out a distance of about 20 feet, “and he’d have to go back inside and lay down for the rest of the day. “But that day [he died], he ran down the driveway, down into the cul-de-sac and back up the driveway. They all stood there like, ‘Wow, what was that?’ He came in, went to sleep and never woke up.”

So when Eury’s #88 opened the 2008 Sprint Cup season in Victory Lane, the win was dedicated to Arnold. “To me, that kind of dedication from that guy — that meant a lot to me, so I told Joey that was for him,” Eury said. “It took a lot of heart and emotion for him to walk in that shop, so I told my guys in Victory Lane [Saturday] night: That [checkered] flag, hold on to it, it’s going to Joey Arnold.”

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