Run, Junior, Run! Phoenix is your kind of track. Time to kick some butt, ain't it?

  

  
Maybe this green thing is just bad luck? Doesn't AMP come in other colors too? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   PHOENIX
   When last seen, the enigma that Dale Earnhardt Jr. has become was getting bounced out of the lead by Kyle Busch late in the Texas 500 a couple days ago, on a fade back to a 20th-place finish…right where he'd started the race.
   And Earnhardt was saying he had to start qualifying better if he and his team expected to finish better: "You've got to start where you've got to finish, you know," is how he put it.
   Okay, this is Phoenix. Junior's won here before (remember the women flashing him in victory lane?).
   And teammate Jimmie Johnson is going for his fourth straight victory at this flat one-mile.
   In fact Jeff Gordon's win in the spring of 2007 means team owner Rick Hendrick has won four in a row and now goes for five.
   These guys clearly have the equipment.
   So will Earnhardt be the man Saturday night?
   Last fall Earnhardt qualified fifth and finished sixth.
   "It's a hard track to win at…and it's a long ways from home," Earnhardt says."Any time you travel that far and get a good finish, it makes it worthwhile.
   "I tend really to feel more comfortable on tracks that are in North Carolina, or close to home. But Phoenix is fun because it's different, the way the corners are different."
   
   

   
Tony Eury Jr. -- Is he cracking the whip hard enough? (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

   
   
Tony Eury Jr., his crew chief, points out the uniqueness: "It's got a lot of banking when you go down into turn one.
   "Then it's got a little dogleg in the back straight.
     "And the other corner is really, really flat.
    "So you've got two obstacles to overcome -- We have to have a soft, flat-track (shock-and-spring) package to get through turns three and four, to make it turn really well there. And then you drive down into the banking, you need (hard) spring and shocks.
   "You always have to give up one or the other. You just pick which part of the track you want to be good at."
    This is the first of a run of NASCAR night races (Richmond, Darlington and Charlotte coming up). "And Dale seems to be a little more pumped for night-racing," Eury says.
    "Plus it's always nice to have a Sunday home, even though you are getting home around 4 in the morning."
    By the numbers, in Earnhardt's 13 runs here, he's got two wins (2003 and 2004), four top-fives, and seven top-10s.
    Also by the numbers: after a ragged start to the season Earnhardt and Eury have climbed back to 16h in the standings, just 67 points by 12th-place Jeff Burton.
  
  

  
The Franchise: Jimmie Johnson (R) and crew chief Chad Knaus. Maybe it is time for Jimmie to ask Rick Hendrick for an ownership piece of the rock (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)
  
  
Johnson's numbers are even more impressive, including his win from the pole here last fall, all but clinching the title. In his 11 races here, Johnson has three wins, six top-fives, and nine top-10s.
  And the car Johnson is bringing here – a tribute to the unchanging rules for the car-of-tomorrow – won twice in 2007 (Martinsville and here) and finished second at Loudon last season.
   No. four? "Winning four in a row would certainly be special, but it's not something I'm really thinking about a lot," Johnson insists.
  Why so good here? Same answer as at Martinsville: "There's not really anything I can put my finger on," Johnson says.
   "Something just clicks with certain drivers at certain places.
    "We've just been able to get the car comfortable for me, and I've just been able to get around the track."
   Staying out of trouble too is key here.  "During a race, there's a lot that can go on at a short track like Phoenix," Johnson says. "And having a good pit stall and good pit stops is important."
   And so may be momentum, which Gordon certainly has, now with that first-ever Texas win: "We have a joke around the shop, that if we win at Martinsville (where Gordon has won seven times), then it almost doesn't count," Gordon says. "It's like half a win.
    "But when we go to places where we've never won -- like Phoenix (in 2007), these are 'double points.'"
     To which crew chief Steve Letarte, now in his fourth season at the helm, can only laugh: "Jeff told me winning Sonoma didn't count either. We won at Sonoma, and that was only 'half' a win."
  
    

    
Ah, the good ol' days...Junior winning at Phoenix, back in 2004 (Photo: NASCAR)