NASCAR Earnhardt Jr. ready for next challenge -- Rockingham

It's one of the few tracks where he has not fared well.
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. (AP) -- After a whirlwind week celebrating his Daytona 500 victory, Dale Earnhardt Jr. needed a good night's sleep in his own bed.
Tony Stewart made sure he'd get one by promising to give Earnhardt a lift in his helicopter to North Carolina Speedway this morning, assuring him of at least one night at home.
Friendship developed
"We got to be real good friends over the last year or so," Earnhardt said. "I tried to stick up for him a couple of times and he appreciated that.
"We just got to be good friends and began hanging out a little bit."
Earnhardt may use the short ride to Rockingham to glean a little knowledge from Stewart on how to win a Nextel Cup championship. Stewart is the 2002 series champion, and Earnhardt will try to prove he's a legitimate threat for his first title beginning with the Subway 400 Sunday.
He has a history of struggling here: in eight career top-series starts at the 1.017-mile oval, Earnhardt's best finish was 13th, in November.
His Dale Earnhardt Inc. team has spent a considerable amount of time testing in preparation for the Subway 400, hoping the extra work will propel him to another victory.
"In the past, it was a track we struggled at," he said. "It may be the only place we haven't really conquered yet."
Junior has proven to be a master at Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway -- the two tracks that require horsepower-sapping restrictor plates -- partly because of the time and energy DEI devotes to those facilities.
He won all three races he entered at Daytona last week and has nine career victories there.
But if Junior wants to be taken seriously as a championship contender, he needs to improve at the tracks he has never masked his disdain for.
Rough surface track
That includes Rockingham, where the rough surface eats away at tires and puts driver ability and handling at a premium.
"Even though we devote a lot of effort and time to restrictor-plate tracks, Rockingham is a track we've emphasized as a place where we need to improve if we're going to win a championship," he said. "I used to come here with a bad attitude, and it seemed to set the tone for the whole team.
"I think it's different now. If anything, winning the Daytona 500 gave us more confidence than we already had as a team, and that's probably the one thing we lacked heading into Rockingham in the past."
The complexion of Sunday's race should be different from past years because of NASCAR-implemented aerodynamic rules revolving around smaller rear spoilers and less downforce.