Earnhardt Jr. to make 400th Cup start Sunday

When the green flag flies on the season-opening Daytona 500 on Sunday, it'll mark the 400th-career Sprint Cup start for Dale Earnhardt Jr. The Sprint Cup Series career that began with him running five Cup races in 1999 while also claiming his second-consecutive Nationwide (then-Busch) Series title, includes 18 wins, 91 top-fives and 150 top-10 finishes in his first 399 starts.

In 2000, his first full season at the Sprint (then-Winton) Cup level, Earnhardt Jr. claimed the first two of his 18 points-paying wins by visiting victory lanes at Texas Motor Speedway and Richmond International Raceway. His first win, coming at Texas, came in his 12th-career Cup start. Earnhardt Jr. also became the first rookie to win NASCAR's all-star race, then referred to as The Winston, in 2000.

After starting his Cup career at Dale Earnhardt Inc., the organization created by his late father, Earnhardt Jr. moved to Hendrick Motorsports at the end of the 2007 race season after a public difference of opinion with step-mother Teresa Earnhardt.

While the first few years of Earnhardt Jr.'s Sprint Cup career were rather fruitful, he has since fallen on hard times, race performance-wise, as his last win came in 2008 at Michigan International Speedway. That 2008 win has been his only points race win to date since making the move to HMS. Although, Earnhardt Jr. did start off his relationship with his new team with wins in the Budweiser Shootout and a Gatorade Duel win -- both non-points-paying events.

This weekend, the Sprint Cup Series gets its 2011 season underway, non-points-paying events aside, with Sunday's running of the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway, a track where Earnhardt Jr. has enjoyed success. He has two wins at Daytona, including the July race there in 2001, the first trip back to Daytona for the series since the death of his father, Dale Earnhardt, and the 2004 Daytona 500.

As for Earnhardt Jr.'s hopes for the 2011 season:

"A dream season would be to be one of those guys battling for the championship going into the last race," he said.

Television coverage for Sunday's Daytona 500 gets underway at noon ET on FOX

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Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Photo courtesy of NASCAR Media