How Junior won doesn't matter

If one is a fan of a driver, isn't a win just that? Does it really matter how that win came to be?


After all, a fuel-mileage gamble is a risky, gutsy move for a team to make, especially one trying to maintain a top points position and make it into the Chase For The NASCAR Sprint Cup. A decision to literally run a tank dry, to know that extra laps are coming and still maintain the steely nerves needed to head to victory lane is something that's a sign of a team's belief in itself.

OK, it may signify a bit of desperation as well, but it's not like the men who made such a gamble on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway were drivers deep in the points trying to get their first win.

These were two of the top drivers in the sport. One was a man who's on a hot streak and beginning to visit victory lane with what must be alarming regularity to his competitors. The other is a driver off to perhaps the strongest season start in his career but still hungering for his first win with his new team.

The men were Gillett Evernham Motorsports' Kasey Kahne and Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr.

In the end, it would be Earnhardt Jr. cruising across the finish line as the race ended under caution -- a race that had already been extended three laps because of another caution period.

Then Junior Nation went wild.

Earnhardt Jr. snapped a 76-race winless streak, a stretch dating back to May 2006 at Richmond International Raceway. He solidified his opening stretch with Hendrick Motorsports, a group he has led in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings all season, with the victory. He showed why he speaks highly of crew chief Tony Eury Jr. and why, though they will argue from time to time, the pair prefer to work with one another instead of with anyone else. And he showed why team owner Rick Hendrick worked to add the pair to his powerful arsenal of drivers.

So say what you will about how Earnhardt Jr. won. He's certainly not the first driver to win with fuel strategy, and he won't be the last. Perhaps it makes a difference that he won because of his call, not because of the call of someone else who faltered and left the leader running out of gas and Earnhardt Jr. skating by to take the win.

At the end of the season, how many people will really remember how each race was won? At the end of this decade, when drivers' total wins are listed in stories and spoken of by fans, will people remember how many wins each of those drivers gained on fuel mileage?

In the end, it was Earnhardt Jr. hoisting the trophy in victory lane. It was Eury Jr. keeping his driver on the track and at the front instead of taking on fuel. And it was Junior Nation celebrating wildly following the win by NASCAR's most popular driver.

To most, that's all that really matters.