Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Winning His Second Daytona 500, Drafting Styles & More
“I don’t really think about it. I want to go up and win the race. I just don’t spend a lot of time thinking about riding in the back. I don’t waste a minute of the day doing that (laughter). I know what you are trying to ask me, but I don’t know. I don’t have an opinion about it. I think you could do it, if that is something you wanted to do; I think it would work. However I don’t plan on doing it. I never really plan on doing it. It may sound like we make that decision prior to the race; but you make it during the race when something happens, or you see something happen that you don’t like. You’re like ‘man, these guys are probably going to wreck; I don’t want to be right up behind it. I can’t get around them because the track is four or three wide or whatever.’ So you move back a couple of hundred yards. I think it is poor judgment to think about it during the week, because you are not thinking about what you need to do to win the race. You are thinking about going backwards. That is not something I want to concentrate on.”NHRA: Hight (Funny Car), Brown (Top Fuel) & Line (Pro Stock) Win at Arizona
Thanks to Brown, Schumacher, a six-time national champion, will have to wait a bit longer for a chance to add to the total.
“Obviously, we were hoping to finally get to victory lane after such a long time,” Schumacher said. “Unfortunately, he (Brown) just got me again.”
“It’s not like I have his (Schumacher’s) number,” Brown said. “It’s not like we’re slaughtering him. We’re winning by thousandths of a second. It can go either way.
“I’ve got 16 Top Fuel wins and he has 67. That’s an incredible team and I’m just trying to catch up.”
Brown was smiling afterward, but admitted the win still was somewhat bittersweet. Tucson Citizen
Funny Car drag racer Robert Hight wasn’t sure Sunday whether winning the National Hot Rod Association’s Arizona Nationals and beating John Force Racing colleague Mike Neff in the final round was the best part of his day at Firebird International Raceway.
