To paraphrase one of the late Frank Sinatra’s biggest hits, “When I Was 29, It Was A Very Good Year” for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in 2004. “That was my best year,” Earnhardt said on this week’s edition of the Dale Jr. Download. Indeed, it was Junior’s best year as he won six races (of his 26 career wins), as well as recorded 16 top-five and 21 top-10 finishes, all single-season bests for the son of NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt Sr.
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Also in 2004, when drivers piloted what was commonly known then as a “Generation 4 (or ‘Gen 4’ for short), Earnhardt would earn the first of two wins in the Daytona 500 (the other was 2014), as well as victories at Atlanta, Richmond, Bristol, Talladega and Phoenix.
But while 2004 was his best Cup season statistically, Junior unfortunately finished a disappointing fifth in the final season standings. Ironically, his best season finish was one year earlier in 2003, when he wound up third (although he won just two races).
With NASCAR coming off last weekend’s traditional “Throwback Weekend” at Darlington Raceway, Earnhardt began reminiscing about the car he drove in 2004.
“That car from 2004 was my best year in terms of how the car felt (and) drove,” Earnhardt said. “I just liked that car. It had a lot of downforce and a lot of grip, but it was all in the body. We had the bodies twisted up in a certain way in that in traffic, it was still relatively decent.
“If you needed a little bit of downforce on the front, all you had to kind of do was get the headlight out. You could still be directly behind a guy, but just show the left front fender or right front fender and get some turn. That was a great race car, a lot of fun, good looking, so (it was) probably my favorite.”
Junior Is A Student of NASCAR History
The third generation racer has long been acknowledged as a big student of NASCAR history. He loves to watch and study films of old races, particularly those from the 1970s.
That’s why it’s no surprise if Junior had a chance to climb behind the wheel of a Cup Series car from any era, he’d love to take a car from that generation out for a spin.
“I watch these old races like 1979 or 1980,” Junior said. “I have a car from (then) that Dad raced, and I am so tempted to get it outfitted and take it somewhere where I could go 150 to 160 mph and see how it felt.
“Would it feel exactly like what Dad drove? Maybe not, but it could.”
Cars of that era were some of the biggest and heaviest that NASCAR has ever seen. And it’s that lure of driving one that makes such a possibility so attractive to Junior.
“I just would love to know what trying to drive one of those big boats around Michigan felt like, or Bristol even (felt like),” he said. “Were they comfortable, were they hard to drive, what was that feeling like from one of those cars in the 70s?”
“Any year in the 70s, I would have loved to drive one of those cars in competition,” he concluded.
