RACE: AAA Texas 500
DATE: Sunday, November 8, 2015
TRACK: Texas Motor Speedway
LENGTH: 1.5-mile oval
TV: NBC, 2:00 p.m. ET
RADIO: PRN/SIRIUSXM

Notes

MARTINSVILLE WRAP-UP: Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet SS, overcame handling issues in the early going at Martinsville Speedway to score his 15th top-five finish of 2015. His fourth-place result helped him gain a position in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings, placing him 11th, just 10 points outside of the top 10 with three races remaining. His Hendrick Motorsports teammate Gordon earned his first victory of 2015 and secured a spot in the four-driver final round of the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup at the Homestead-Miami finale.

KELLEY BLUE BOOK: Kelley Blue Book, the vehicle valuation and information source trusted and relied upon by both consumers and the automotive industry, will adorn the hood of Earnhardt's No. 88 Chevrolet SS this weekend at Texas Motor Speedway. Earnhardt also ran the Kelley Blue Book scheme at Atlanta Motor Speedway earlier this year.

SUCCESS ON 1.5-MILE TRACKS: This season, Earnhardt has had strong runs on 1.5-mile tracks, earning an average finish of 10.9 in nine races. At Texas, the Kannapolis, North Carolina, native has an average finish of 14.2 in 26 races, but in the last two seasons, excluding a 43th-place result due to an incident in the opening laps of the April 2014 race, his average finish is a stout 3.7. While he hasn’t been to Victory Lane since winning his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in his first start at the 1.5-mile oval on April 2, 2000, at age 25, he’s earned two top-five and eight top-10 finishes in the 11 most recent races at the facility, dating back to 2010. The 41-year-old driver has two poles at the Lone Star State track, earning the top starting spot in April 2001 and in April 2008, his first pole with Hendrick Motorsports.

QUALITY PASSES: Earnhardt leads all active drivers in the quality passes category. Quality passes are the number of times a driver passes another car that is running in the top 15 while under green flag conditions. The driver of the No. 88 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet has recorded 863 quality passes at Texas, 30 more than the next closest driver.

TEXAS LOOP DATA: According to NASCAR's loop data statistics, Earnhardt has the ninth-best driver rating during the last 10 years among active drivers with a 91.9. The No. 88 Kelley Blue Book driver ranks third in the number of laps in the top 15 with 5,229 and he holds a solid ranking in many of the speed categories: average speed early in a run (eighth – 177.164), average speed late in a run (third – 171.558), fastest laps run (ninth – 256) and green-flag speed (fifth – 173.74). 

Quote

Dale Earnhardt Jr. on racing at Texas: “We’re still working hard to try to win one of these last three races. I enjoy going to Texas, and I think we’ll have a shot at it there. I want to end up inside the top 10 in points at the end of this season, so each good finish gets us closer to that. I’ve got a lot of faith in this team and the things we can accomplish.”