PREVIEW: DALE EARNHARDT JR. (NO. 5 DELPHI CHEVROLET)
VENUE: TALLADEGA SUPERSPEEDWAY (2.66-MILE TRI-OVAL)
CIRCUIT: NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES (RACE 9 OF 35)
DATE: APRIL 26, 2008 (117 LAPS, 311 MILES)

AT TALLADEGA: In five NASCAR Nationwide Series starts at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has recorded one win, two top-five finishes and three top-10s. During his win, which happened on April 5, 2003, Earnhardt led 60 of the 117 laps -- 51.3 percent of the race.

IN THE NATIONWIDE SERIES: In 101 career starts in the Nationwide Series, Earnhardt has won 22 times and recorded 47 top-five finishes, 64 top-10s and nine pole positions. He claimed the series championship in 1998 and 1999 and has raced in at least one event in 12 of the past 13 Nationwide Series seasons (none in 2000).

THIS SEASON: Earnhardt, who will run a total of eight races this season in the No. 5 Chevrolet, has one top-five finish and three top-10s in four 2008 Nationwide Series events. His average start is 11.8, and his average finish is eighth. This weekend's race at Talladega marks Earnhardt's first of two events in the No. 5 Delphi Chevrolet this season for JR Motorsports. His next Delphi race will be at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway on July 4.

CHASSIS CHOICE: Crew chief Chad Walter has chosen JR Motorsports Chassis No. 279 for Saturday's race at Talladega. Casey Mears drove the car last April in the Nationwide Series at Talladega. Mears started the race fourth, finished third and led 52 of the total 120 laps.

HOME COOKING: Brian Campe, a 26-year-old native of Madison, Ala., is a race engineer and shock specialist for the No. 5 JR Motorsports Chevrolet team. Campe got started in motor sports as a high schooler building engines. From 1997 to 2002, he built engines for all forms of racing, including Pro Mod's drag cars and Hobby Stock's stock cars. In 2002, he transferred from the University of Alabama at Huntsville to UNC Charlotte to pursue a career in NASCAR. An internship at Dale Earnhardt Inc. in May 2003 turned into a job as a race engineer once he graduated in December 2005. Campe transitioned to Hendrick Motorsports in March 2006 and became the shock specialist for the No. 5 Nationwide Series team. At the end of the 2007 season, Campe moved from Hendrick Motorsports to JR Motorsports when the two organizations merged Nationwide Series programs.

UP NEXT: Rookie Landon Cassill, 18, will run his third race of the season on May 2, when he will pilot the No. 5 National Guard/2-224th Aviation Battalion (Assault) Chevrolet at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway. On May 9, Mark Martin will climb behind the wheel of the No. 5 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway. It will be Martin's second race of the season for JR Motorsports after winning in March at Las Vegas.

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DALE EARNHARDT JR., DRIVER OF THE NO. 5 DELPHI CHEVROLET (ON WHY HE HAS PERFORMED WELL AT TALLADEGA.): "I enjoy it. I study it. Studying it hard is important, I think, because I just watched Dad and watched a lot of races and tried to understand why things were happening that didn't look like they should be happening. How cars got runs in certain areas of the track and how they work side-by-side differently every time they would go back from the old Monte Carlos to the new Lumina. They changed how the cars ran side-by-side. I wasn't driving them, but I would just watch that and wondered why they sometimes struggled side-by-side. I just studied all that stuff all the time."

EARNHARDT (ON HAVING CONFIDENCE GOING INTO TALLADEGA.): "I just feel if you go into something with all this confidence and you just know, 'Hey, man, I'm going to do great at this,' rarely do you ever fail horribly. At worst, you'll meet your expectations and be satisfied. But if you go in with that much confidence, man, it's hard to fail. It really is. I've never went to a plate track and said, 'Wow I feel like I don't know what I'm doing.' Every time I go there and the race starts, I do things with my car that work, and I feel like I understood how it happened and why it happened and how to make it better and do it better. I think it has a lot to do with mentality, too. Certain people are instantly born to be a plate racer, but I think certain people's mentality can get that style of racing better."

EARNHARDT (ON WHAT IT TAKES TO BE SUCCESSFUL AT RESTRICTOR PLATE TRACKS.): "It's being able to adapt to what the car's strengths are because they will be different every time. Also being able to adapt and use the car's strengths, understanding its weaknesses and believing in the car in that situation. There's a little bit of an attack mode in the mentality of that driver that they always have when they are on the racetrack, and that has to be there all the time. You can't be willing to ride tense. You will always see the guys that want to be in the lead will be the same guys every time racing to the front."

BRIAN CAMPE, RACE ENGINEER AND SHOCK SPECIALIST FOR THE NO. 5 DELPHI CHEVROLET (ON HOW HE GOT INTO RACING.): "My dad was into it, and not to be corny, but when Dale Earnhardt Sr. won the Daytona 500, I wanted to get into stock cars. Me and my buddy, we were going to move to Nashville to go to diesel mechanic school and somehow get into racing that way. It seemed like a good idea at the time. My dad convinced me that mechanics were going to be a thing of the past, and I should get an engineering degree and try it that way."