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NASCAR America: Dale Earnhardt Jr. reveals secret to Talladega success

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. walks through his career success at Talladega and discusses his strategies to winning races at the restrictor plate race.

In Wednesday’s edition of NASCAR America, Dale Earnhardt Jr. revealed the secret to his success at Talladega.

“I always made people feel like we were best friends until I didn’t need them anymore,” Earnhardt said. ”To win at plate races, you’ve got to be everybody’s best friend and then turn around and be the biggest jerk you’ve ever been in your life when it matters.”

Describing his 2003 victory in the Aaron’s 499 – his fourth straight win at Talladega SuperSpeedway – Earnhardt walked Jeff Burton, Steve Letarte and Rick Allen through a play-by-play of what he was doing during the final five laps.

Some highlights include:

“I’m getting ready to get some good help from behind. The 48 looks like he’s in trouble, but he jumps in front of the 22 and they get a real good push down the back straightaway. Now, I’ve got no help. I’m freaking out a little bit because their run looks pretty good on the outside.”

“Here, they’re trying to pin me behind the 16, but I wasn’t having anything to do with that and that hurt Ward (Burton) a little bit.”

“I pushed Matt (Kenseth) up way far, so the 48 is waiting, waiting, waiting. They’re thinking about side drafting each other a little bit, but they’re not too sure. Matt goes up there to side draft now, not really paying attention to me. Here I come with a great push from Elliott Sadler to get by them both. That was just luck that Matt wasn’t really paying attention there.”

“I stay in the gas. I never really rode the brake to back myself up to anybody. I always just waited on them to get to me. If I needed the pack to get closer, I would take a longer route; just drive higher in the corner.”

For more insight into Earnhardt’s secret to success, watch the above video.