Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows a lot about racing teammates in crucial races, particularly those in the playoffs. He also knows what it takes to stay out of trouble and win at Talladega Superspeedway, where he took the checkered flag six times in his Cup career.
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As for racing with teammates, Junior, almost every year, had to race cleanly with his Hendrick Motorsports teammates. The key, however, was always to race cleanly and fairly with the other Team Hendrick drivers and maybe give them a bit more space and pace than he would give to non-HMS drivers.
On this week’s edition of the Dale Jr. Download podcast, Earnhardt spoke about how the two remaining Team Penske playoff squads must race against each other this Sunday at Talladega, as both defending and three-time Cup champ Joey Logano and 2023 Cup champ Ryan Blaney will fight each other to enhance their chances to move to the season-ending Championship 4 race at Phoenix two weeks from now.
“If Blaney and Joey are running first and second with 20 (laps) to go, it don’t matter; they’re not going to shuffle one or the other out early,” Earnhardt professed. “They’re going to need that teammate to be able to stay in those positions all the way to the finish.”
But it won’t be just Logano needing Blaney and vice-versa. They’ll also need Team Penske Racing teammate Austin Cindric (who was eliminated from the playoffs) and Josh Berry from the Penske-affiliated Wood Brothers Racing to give Blaney and Logano some help, such as blocking other playoff contenders.
Blaney has the toughest job coming into ‘Dega. After his early crash and last-place finish at Las Vegas this past Sunday, Blaney is in a must-win situation both at Talladega as well as at Martinsville. He is the last of the remaining eight Round of Eight playoff drivers still in contention, but he’s 31 points behind fourth-ranked Chase Briscoe, who is one of four drivers above the provisional cutoff line to advance to the Championship 4 round.
But Logano isn’t in that much better of a position, either. He’s seventh in the standings, 24 points behind Briscoe. And while he’s made it an art form of rallying deep in the playoffs to earn all three of his Cup championship titles, he also is in a must-win situation (unless he earns a great deal of points, thus cutting into the lead of the four frontrunners: Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Chase Briscoe, and Byron).
“They’re going to try to work together for the benefit of both of them all the way to the finish,” Earnhardt said. “And then I think coming to the white [flag], that’s when it gets a little blurry and you may see a teammate with a run he has to take, and he’s going to have to, he’s going to (have to) make that choice. He’s going to do that thing for himself in that moment. It may come with two [laps] to go.
“But I’d say you take a risk and lose. The one thing that you don’t want to do is go back to Roger Penske and have to look him in the face and say, ‘The move I made cost us both a win.’ Whatever move you make, it better be the one that wins you the race.’ You can’t cost both of you the race.”
