NASCAR at Kentucky preview: Dale Earnhardt Jr. moves past Daytona disappointment

If Dale Earnhardt Jr. is to make the playoffs, he needs to win one of the nine remaining regular season races.

Instead of a storybook outcome that would’ve virtually guaranteed himself a playoff berth, Dale Earnhardt Jr. left Daytona International Speedway with a battered and beaten Chevrolet that accompanied a 32nd-place finish.

Amidst a trying season, Earnhardt’s last before retiring from full-time competition at the end of the year, Daytona represented the best chance for Earnhardt to score a win during the regular season and grab one of 16 available spots in the Monster Energy Cup Series playoffs.

Those hopes ended when Kevin Harvick spun on the backstretch directly ahead of Earnhardt, who had no avenue to escape. In the aftermath, the No. 88 car suffered damage unrepairable within the five-minute window NASCAR permits, forcing Earnhardt to retire.

Earnhardt is now 138 points behind Matt Kenseth, provisionally the last driver ahead of the postseason cut line, with nine regular season races remaining. And with Daytona come and gone without a win, Earnhardt recognizes that the victory he absolutely requires will be difficult to obtain.

“I think at Daytona there was an urgency because I think it’s an easier race to win for me than it is here,” Earnhardt said Friday at Kentucky Speedway, site of Saturday night’s Quaker State 400. “I felt like I was very aggressive in the race and having a lot of fun and my car was amazing and all I needed to do was to be right there at the end and we didn’t get to do that.

“Do I think that we don’t have any more chances? I think we can show up somewhere and get the job done. But, it’s just not going to come as easy as it might have come at Daytona. And it’s going to be some work.”

The arduous road Earnhardt faces to qualify for the playoffs was evident during both practices on Friday. His best single lap in final practice was only the 25th-fastest and he admitted afterward it was a struggle to find speed, even joking that the trying afternoon had added some gray hairs to his beard.

"I just spent three hours practicing today and never once thought about my retirement or this being my last year," Earnhardt said. "I'm only thinking how in the hell to get the car to go a little faster. Nothing came easy.

"On days like today, you could tell me I'd have five more years of this and I wouldn't know any better."

Earnhardt later qualified 13th, indicating crew chief Greg Ives and the No. 88 team had made considerable gains. Earnhardt also found optimism in that the recently repaved Kentucky oval shares many characteristics with another 1.5-mile track, Texas Motor Speedway, where in April he finished fifth despite starting at the rear of the field.

“We went to Texas and ran really good on the new repave,” Earnhardt said. “So, mentally we come in with a confidence or maybe that positivity that maybe this is a great opportunity if things can go as well as they did in Texas, we might have a fast-enough car.”

Whether what transpired at Texas translates to success at Kentucky is unknown. Texas was an afternoon race, while Kentucky is a night race. What’s not a mystery is that Earnhardt needs a win if he’s to have a final shot to win a first-ever Cup Series championship.

“We need a win to get in the playoffs,” Earnhardt said. “If we won [Saturday night] the first thing that would come to mind is how that has helped us get an opportunity to be in the postseason in the final year; that would be great.”