SONOMA, Calif. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. is most definitely not on the list of drivers who love NASCAR’s annual visit to wine country.
Earnhardt couldn’t think of a worse track than Infineon Raceway to visit a week after winning his first race.
“Never liked coming here,” he said. “Don’t like the track. It’s not a fun track to compete on. It’s fun to go around it and goof off and raise a little bit of hell, but I don’t like being in competition on it.”
Earnhardt’s dislike for Infineon is probably based on past results. He’s never been successful on the road course, failing to notch a single top 10 in eight previous starts. His best finish was 11th, twice, and he’s only led a lap in one race here.
He blames his past failures on the track.
“It’s impossible to pass. Where do you pass? There’s a couple braking zones, but that’s about it,” he said. “You just wait on people to screw up.”
So it’s not exactly the place Earnhardt wanted to celebrate after snapping his 76-race winless streak last Sunday in Michigan. In addition to his on-track struggles, Earnhardt was badly burned in a fire when he crashed here practicing for a sports car race in 2004.
It’s left him with an overall disdain and a seemingly defeated attitude the moment he arrives. He’ll start 15th on Sunday.
“I’m gonna screw up,” he said. “Trust me, I’ll screw it up. I’m not very good at road racing, so we just try to do the best we can. I’m just trying to get through the weekend.”
THANKS FOR THE HELP: As a master road course racer, Boris Said is often called on to help NASCAR’s full-time drivers prepare for the two road course events on the annual schedule.
The list of drivers he’s helped in Sunday’s race is at 18, including pole-sitter Kasey Kahne.
“I enjoyed working with him,” Kahne said. “He taught me a lot of things and taught me how to go faster. We rode a two-seater together — he rode with me and I rode with him. I watched him and then he picked my stuff apart, what I was doing good and what I was doing bad. You can learn a lot from a guy like that.”
Said focuses on showing drivers how to brake and adapt to a different style of racing.
“You show them the difference between oval racing and road-course racing, it’s a different braking technique, and, really, they’re not used to going so slow into a corner,” he said. “In my opinion, these guys are the best drivers in the world. They have a lot of car control, so if you show them a few things, it’s like showing a duck water — they know how to swim.”
Now Said, who races for the No Fear Racing team, is working on running with them full-time. He’s got an eight-race schedule planned for this year, including Sunday’s race. He’ll start 14th.
“Our goal is to be a full-time team,” he said. “I won’t be happy until we’re doing that, whether I’m the driver or somebody else is the driver. But I feel like the team we’ve put together, how competitive we are, every time we show up at the track, we’re better than a lot of full-time teams.
“We have four full-time employees, that’s it. We’ve got a relationship with Roush Fenway and Ford and I think we have the makings to be a really good full-time team.”
Next up for Said is next month’s race at Daytona, where he won the pole and finished fourth two years ago in his part-time ride.
“I’m looking at going back to Daytona and try to relive the magic,” he said. “That was my 10 minutes of fame, so to speak, because no one ever expected it on an oval.”
POINTS RACING PRUETT: Road-racing ace Scott Pruett will be behind the wheel Sunday when he drives for Reed Sorenson at Infineon Raceway.
But for as much as Pruett would like to score his first Sprint Cup Series victory, his focus is on earning enough points to solidify the No. 41 Dodge’s place inside the top 35.
Sorenson has the car 32nd in the standings, just 22 points ahead of 35th-place driver Michael McDowell. Because of that precarious position, team owner Chip Ganassi tabbed Pruett to drive earlier this week.
“I’m here for points,” Pruett said. “I’m here to get every point I can. I’m not going to be a superstar and try and make big moves and take chances with the car. I’m going to go out, run hard, run smart and get every point that I can for the team.”
Pruett is a two-time Grand Am Series champion, and will have to dial it down a bit Sunday to conserve the car. It’s not exactly in his nature, and he knows Ganassi might have to coax him at times during the race.
“It goes against the creed of any race car driver (to not be aggressive),” he said. “Chip will be on the radio telling me, ‘It’s all about points, it’s all about points,’ … he’ll be a good reminder of where to stay focused.”
Pruett wasn’t at the track Saturday — he had to travel to Mid-Ohio for the Grand-Am race, so Sorenson drove the car in the final practice session.
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