“Fords Are Back” – Dale Earnhardt Jr Turns His Back On His Team As He Predicted The Ford Resurgence

Ford is slowly preparing to turn around their season. In the first half of the 2023 season, the winningest manufacturer Chevrolet continued their dominance with eight victories to Toyota’s four and a mere one win for Ford. But fast forward to Richmond, and one can see an unexpected Chris Buescher celebrating his win in the victory lane.

With the playoffs closing in with every passing second, the drivers have also maximized their efforts to ensure a smooth qualification. As for Ford, apart from race winners Buescher, Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano, veterans Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick have also almost cemented a place in the playoffs. Dale Earnhardt Jr, a long-time Chevy driver, isn’t really surprised by the recent rise of the Fords and has been expecting it as he explains in his own words.

Dale Earnhardt Jr applauds Ford’s turnaround this season

In 2022, Ford started off their season in the best possible way at Daytona, with Austin Cindric grabbing the win and six drivers in the top 10. Coming to 2023, the Mustang manufacturers had to wait till the spring race at Richmond in April to see four Fords in the top 10 places. At Talladega, they increased their number in the upper echelons of the race to claim half of the top 10 places. Dale Earnhardt Jr claims that he could see it coming as he searched for a storyline yet to come to the fore some weeks back.

“A couple of weeks ago, dude, I’m taking notes all the time, getting ready for the next race and thinking about storylines and what’s going on. We were going into Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, and before we did 1-2 races and weren’t doing the same as these Toyotas were, right?” starts off Junior.

Atlanta can be called a favorable track for the teams deploying Ford cars. The longer turns with more room and shorter straightaways have the potential for superspeedway-style racing, which suits Ford’s strengths. Their run at Talladega was also successful for similar reasons.

“Hey man here’s a storyline, the Fords. Can they get better? They were just a touch off right? And if I find that, they get faster. And I’m talking to some of the Ford drivers, and they’re like, ‘Yeah struggling with the body and there are some updates and so forth. That’d been advantageous for other and not for us’ and so what they’re telling me is like you know the way the body works it should run really good at Atlanta. It goes to Atlanta and they ran great. They ran good there earlier in the spring.”

Speaking about the areas where they need to focus their resources on and try to improvise upon their performances this season, the two-time Xfinity champion adds,

“But they go to the high downforce tracks, they struggle. But the last two races have been good. Have they found something? I think so. They were really strong at Pocono and then again at Richmond.”

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Amid Chevrolet’s recent struggles, Dale Jr feels Fords are better currently

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At Richmond, the Toyota trio of Tyler Reddick, Bubba Wallace, and Denny Hamlin dominated the first stage, taking up the first three positions. But with Reddick being involved in a commitment zone violation penalty and Bubba Wallace falling behind with a slow pit stop, RFK Racing owner Keselowski came charging from behind to take the lead and with teammate Buescher following behind closely.

“The Fords are back. Look, I’m a Chevy guy through and through all my life but when we sit down here to check where we call it straight, we’re up in the booth we call it straight, when the Chevys are down the Chevys are down, when the Fords are up the Fords are up. I don’t think anybody is ‘down’ down right now but some of the Chevys have struggled. The Fords can now keep this going. I think that’d be extremely impressive.”

This is a step forward for the Ford teams, considering the problems they have faced in traffic and dirty air previously. NASCAR’s decision to allow manufacturers to adjust their front end and cooling packages, on the other hand, helped only their rivals Chevrolet and Toyota. But Junior claims that despite the challenges, Ford might have found light at the end of the tunnel.

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