{"id":43779,"date":"2017-09-14T09:08:06","date_gmt":"2017-09-14T16:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=43779"},"modified":"2017-09-14T09:08:06","modified_gmt":"2017-09-14T16:08:06","slug":"did-dale-jr-actually-retire-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/did-dale-jr-actually-retire-last-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Dale Jr Actually Retire Last Year?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Did
Hopes were high for Dale Junior going into this season. Unfortunately, those hopes haven\u2019t been realized, and Junior will be watching The Chase from the outside. All images courtesy dalejr.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dale Earnhardt Junior announced at the beginning of the season that he was going to retire; 2017 would be his last year of full-time competition in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Since then, even in comparison to his shortened 2016 season, he\u2019s had a mediocre season at best. This has led to some speculation that maybe his heart isn\u2019t in it the way it needs to be this year.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

His Last Season has Been Among the Worst of His Career<\/strong><\/p>\n

Junior<\/a> is winless (so far) for the eighth time in his career. However, he\u2019s only got one top five and four top ten finishes so far, the worst since his rookie year at the Cup level. Last year, in only 18 races, he had five top five and six top ten finishes. 2004, when he was still driving for his father\u2019s Dale Earnhardt, Inc., was his best year with six wins: 16 top five and 21 top ten finishes.<\/p>\n

The 2009 season was the only season when he had a worse average finish – 23.25 in 2009 and 21.35 so far this year. His rookie year was only marginally worse at 21.40. He\u2019s amassed an average finish of 15.79 over his 18 year Cup career. This year, his best finish is fifth and his worst is 38th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He Hasn\u2019t Driven \u201cLike Dale Junior\u201d This Year<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Did
Fifth place at Texas is the best Junior\u2019s been able to muster this year.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ever since he received medical clearance to resume competition prior to the 2017, the sport\u2019s favorite driver for the last million years has told fans and the media that he was eager to get the season going and fight hard for a championship. He told fans and the press, \u201cI feel great, and I\u2019m excited to officially be back.\u201d It hasn\u2019t seemed like it, though.<\/p>\n

Out of the 26 races run so far this year, he\u2019s been in five wrecks and lost his engine twice. One of the times his engine failed, he admits it was because he missed a shift. He doesn\u2019t seem to be concentrating the way he did in previous years. He\u2019s had moments at tracks like Daytona, Pocono and Michigan where \u201cthe old Dale Jr\u201d was driving and fans had hopes for him. The rest of the time he\u2019s almost seemed like he was just marking time until Homestead and retirement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mistakes and Lost Opportunities Cost Races<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most Junior<\/a> fans who I\u2019ve spoken with this year tell me that even in interviews he sometimes looks and sounds different from previous years. He almost appears timid at times on the track. At other times he appears to lose focus and commits errors that cost him major positons on the track. He\u2019s doing pretty good, up in the top ten, and then he makes a mistake on pit road or enters a turn too hot and loses track position having to recover it.<\/p>\n

\"Did
A rookie mistake – missing a shift – cost Junior a possible good showing at Pocono earlier this year, fueling rumors that he\u2019d already hung it up and was just spinning his wheels.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There have also been numerous occasions this year when Junior\u2019s had opportunities to advance and win races if he would just take a couple chances and make passes. Last week at Richmond was one of the few times that he and crew chief Greg Ives took any sort of risk and stayed out on old tires, trying to wait out the inevitable last-race caution. He ended up having to pit under green and finishing 13th<\/sup> after leading 13 laps.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Junior Says Concussions No Excuse for Poor Performance<\/strong><\/p>\n

Junior has said a couple of times this year that his concussions have nothing to do with his poor performance. Back in August he told reporters, \u201cThere are a lot of things that play a role in being competitive. I think that I\u2019m healthy and I\u2019m happy and thrilled that I\u2019m healthy. I think I can drive a race car, but there is really no excuse for us not performing well or meeting expectations. There is no excuse for missing a lot of races. Kyle (Busch) missed a lot of races with his injuries (in 2015) and came back and was successful right out of the gate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Did
Junior appeared to be making passes when he missed a shift.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However in another interview, Dale Junior told the reporter that he\u2019s wondered if he\u2019d suffer another one. \u201cYou can\u2019t completely block things like that out of your mind,\u201d he was quoted as saying. During his recovery, he said that he didn\u2019t really care about racing; that he just wanted to get better. He said the blurry vision he suffered scared him to death. \u201cIf you\u2019re a football player and you blow out your knee or tear your ACL or something, you know what that felt like; you know what the rehab was like, how hard that is to get back. So you can claim it\u2019s out of your mind or you don\u2019t think about it, but it is. It\u2019s in the back of your mind all the time. Having that experience is a memory that you can\u2019t escape.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poor Results Have People Talking<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most Junior fans think that the concussions he suffered and his deciding to sit out the last half of last year affected him mentally more than he wants to admit or even realizes. We\u2019ve seen where if he had been able to make that split second decision to go with the line with a run he\u2019d have been able to drive up closer to the front. We\u2019ve seen where he\u2019s lost his concentration and down-shifted instead of up-shifted, costing him an engine. He\u2019s overshot his pit while up near the front a few times. It just looks like \u201chis head isn\u2019t in the game\u201d at times. Other times we see moments of brilliance where he resumes his role as The Pied Piper of some tracks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Poor Chemistry and Weak Hendrick Showing Blamed by Some<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Did
Junior\u2019s Daytona 500 race ended early when he was involved in an accident. He finished 37th.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A number of NASCAR fans out there feel that Dale Junior and Greg Ives don\u2019t have good chemistry together and the performance they both give on race day suffers because of it. They say that Junior not giving the races his all has made the poor chemistry that he and his crew chief have worse. This has made it so the two can\u2019t communicate the way they need to in order to make Junior\u2019s car faster during the race, so he languishes outside the top 20 most of the race. The close to five minute \u201cdiscussion\u201d at Bristol, trying to figure out the needed adjustments, reinforces this belief.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the fact that the Hendrick<\/a> organization as a whole isn\u2019t doing too well this season, even though Junior\u2019s the only one who didn\u2019t make the Chase. They cite the fact that the four teams split four wins, with Kasey Kahne<\/a>\u2019s win at Indianapolis coming down to luck and not a winning performance. This group then points out that as an organization, Hendrick has only succeeded in winning three stages this year – Chase<\/a> with two and Jimmie<\/a> with one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Haters Gonna Hate<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a small but vocal group of Junior detractors out there who have said for years that he\u2019s over-rated and his popularity is based upon his name and maybe his temperament, but it\u2019s in no way based upon his ability as a driver. This group says he\u2019s been just an average Cup driver over his career and downright mediocre this year – an \u201cAlso Ran.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Did<\/p>\n

The really nasty ones blame it on his new wife, Amy Reimann. They say that she\u2019s wrapped him around her finger and decided for him that racing was too dangerous, that he had to hang it up after this season. \u201cJust go out and makes laps without taking risks,\u201d is what they say Amy keeps telling him. Of course, these are the same guys who say Danica Patrick was only brought into NASCAR because she\u2019s a pretty face and brings women to the races. They say her open wheel success was because of her looks and the other drivers were just being nice to her.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reason, thousands of his fans are disappointed that they won\u2019t see their favorite driver racing for a championship before he retires. Well, maybe he\u2019ll come back to and dominate Xfinity!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dale Earnhardt Junior announced at the beginning of the season that he was going to retire; 2017 would be his last year of full-time competition in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Since then, even in comparison to his shortened 2016 season, he\u2019s had a mediocre season at best.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":43783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3424,3470,5029],"tags":[1434,1074,127,41,1632,3918],"class_list":["post-43779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","category-news","category-racing","tag-dale-earnhardt-jr","tag-mike-aguilar","tag-nascar","tag-news","tag-racing","tag-retirement"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/b2afd31533c8438b8d9b385486254fb5.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-bo7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43779"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43786,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43779\/revisions\/43786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}