But he couldn’t have done it without his girlfriend. Without Amy Reimann, Earnhardt wouldn’t have even had any clothes to wear.

Reimann, who has been dating Earnhardt the last few years, has a good friend and co-worker who works for a clothing company. She just happened to be in New York when Earnhardt won the race and learned that he would be heading to New York to begin a week of media appearances.

“Amy has like a bit of a part-time job and so just by fate these people were in New York to help us get some clothes," Earnhardt said Friday. "So on our flight to New York from Daytona Kristin was scrambling trying to put together some things judging by the schedule that I had. I never had to wear socks twice or wear underwear twice, so that was good. Everything was clean.

“Kristin did a great job. That is one of the perks to having a good, dedicated girlfriend like that. I don’t know what I would have done without Amy and Kristin at that particular moment. I definitely wouldn’t have represented myself as well as I did this week. That was a big help from them.”

Earnhardt was most overwhelmed by the response and reaction his victory sparked. He received congratulatory messages from the Washington Redskins, his favorite sports team, and Nationwide, one of his sponsors, ran a full-page ad in USA Today congratulating him. A famous barbecue restaurant in Memphis promised to send him some ribs, and when he arrived at Phoenix International Raceway Friday, he learned that NASCAR legend Bill Elliott would be his spotter during practice.

“Just seeing the reaction from the fans that they get that much joy from it means probably the most,” Earnhardt said. “Definitely hearing from the Redskins is pretty awesome. Rendezvous ribs from Memphis is going to send me some ribs so that is awesome.

“I mean all kinds of things keep happening. Bill Elliott is going to spot for me. I don’t know what is going to happen next. It just keeps going." 


GORDON THRILLED WITH PRANK


Jeff Gordon said the video prank that he and sponsor Pepsi pulled on a journalist was a huge risk, but Gordon calls it "the most incredible thing I have ever done."

In early February, Gordon pretended to be a taxi cab driver and took Jalopnik writer Travis Okulski for a wild ride as part of a fake police chase in a North Carolina industrial complex. Okulski had exposed as fake Gordon’s Pepsi Max commerical last year where Gordon supposedly took a car salesman on a crazy ride.

“I had this guys’ safety in my hands,” Gordon said Friday at Phoenix International Raceway. “I took a lot of pride into making sure it was done safe, and so did Pepsi Max. 	“I don’t know if you will ever see this done again, I’ll be honest, because it was that risky. But we did it and we can laugh.”

Gordon said it took eight months to get the necessary approvals and set up the elaborate ruse. Gordon, Okulski and Pepsi Max insist that the video, which was released Thursday, is real, although some of the video used is from rehearsal runs — the two back antennas attached to the trunk lid appear and disappear throughout the video — but the reactions are real.

The risks could be considered enormous from an injury liability standpoint. It also could have exposed those involved to criminal charges — it is illegal in North Carolina to restrain another person without consent in a car (the doors were locked and Okulski pleaded for Gordon to stop) and travel from one point to another.

Lawyers typically would view that as enough to scrap the project.

“Why would we do that?” Gordon said about the liability. “It is a good question. But I could tell you that it was a blast doing it. And I think the response that it’s getting certainly speaks for itself.

“I was questioning that a few times myself. I know people are going to question that. But after it was over and we came sliding in, I was like, ‘Wow. That was the most incredible thing I have ever done.’”

The original “Test Drive” has had 41 million views. The video released Thursday had 4.8 million views as of Friday afternoon.

“I like stepping outside the boundaries,” Gordon said. “When you look at all the comments from the first video, … everybody was really challenging us to go and do this because of their comments saying, ‘Jeff wasn’t driving the car’ or ‘this wasn’t real’ or ‘that wasn’t real.’

“Here is the results of that because we wanted to go out there and show everybody how authentic and real this could be.”


EARNHARDT LEADS PRACTICE


Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn't showing any signs of a Daytona 500 hangover as he posted the top speed in Sprint Cup practice Friday at Phoenix International Raceway.

Earnhardt turned a lap of 138.723 mph around the 1-mile track with a different car than the one he raced last week at Daytona.

He also had a different voice in his ear as spotter TJ Majors is home with an intestinal problem and he had former Cup champion Bill Elliott as his spotter.

Elliott won NASCAR's Most Popular Driver award a record 16 times while Earnhardt has the longest streak in winning the award 11 times. Jeff Dickerson, who spotted for Earnhardt a few times last year, will spot for him in the race.

“That is going to be pretty awesome,” Earnhardt said about working with Elliott prior to practice. “A lot of most popular driver awards right there, like 27 or something like that."

Three drivers topped 138 mph — Earnhardt, Joey Logano and Kyle Busch. Rounding out the top 10 were Greg Biffle, Austin Dillon, Kyle Larson, Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex Jr., Paul Menard and Aric Almirola.


HARVICK UPSET WITH DAYTONA SAFETY


A sore Kevin Harvick bitterly scolded track operators Friday for the lack of energy-absorbing safety barriers after he hit the inside pit wall Sunday at Daytona International Speedway.

Harvick hit the wall head-on in a last-lap crash Sunday, leaving him hurting this week leading into practice Friday at Phoenix International Raceway.

NASCAR mandated that all tracks put the SAFER (steel-and-foam energy reduction) Barriers in the corners about 10 years ago, one of the many safety initiatives following the death of Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500. Tracks have added more SAFER Barriers after accidents in other areas of the track but have not been as proactive as Harvick thinks they should.

“It’s a little bit frustrating because it really shouldn’t even be a debate,” Harvick said. “I know they have data that shows where the most frequently hit spots are.

“But we wear all this safety equipment and do all the things that we do to these racetracks for that one freak incident to keep things from happening like happened back in 2001. It shouldn’t even be a debate. It’s just one of those things, I guess they’re just waiting for something else to happen and then they’ll fix it.”

NASCAR Chairman Brian France and track operators have said that they always look at areas where additional SAFER Barriers would be necessary. They covered the turns at all tracks first because of the costs and limited materials.

Daytona is currently doing a $400 million grandstand renovation. Harvick noted on Twitter and in talking to the media Friday that Daytona's renovations are much more expensive than the $500-a-foot SAFER Barrier. Did the tracks notice?

“The tracks, for the most part, don’t listen to anything unless it’s profitable for their shareholders,” Harvick said. “When you see somebody spending 400 million dollars and they don’t have soft walls around the inside, maybe they can spend 403 million to finish the inside of the superspeedway there at Daytona.”


NEW AERO RULES COULD BE CHALLENGE


NASCAR’s new aerodynamic rules will have some impact this weekend at 1-mile Phoenix International Raceway and even more next week at 1.5-mile Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

While teams know the new rules will change the handling of their cars, they wonder just how much of an impact the increased downforce will have on their setups.

One of the biggest changes is the elimination of the ride-height rules for the front of the car. No longer will there be a minimum ground clearance between the front splitter and the ground.

In the past, teams would work to get the car as low as possible on the racetrack but when in a static setting in the technical bay, the car would be high enough meet the minimum clearance. NASCAR opted to just get rid of the rule so teams could have more of a choice on shocks and springs and to relieve them from trying to manipulate the rule.

“We are going to be lowering our cars and riding stiff springs,” 2004 Cup champion Kurt Busch said. “What will that do in traffic? That is going to be the side effect on how stiff do you go versus the grip level in the tires.

“It makes it very difficult. You have trends for specific tracks, but at the same time we don’t know what our final setup is going to be and with Phoenix … we still have that question mark over our head on how we need to set the car up heading into that race.”

NASCAR also has switched from a curved to a square leading edge of the front splitter, has made some slight side skirt adjustments (4-inch clearance instead 4.5-5 inches) and rear fascia adjustments (1.375 inches higher) and increased the spoiler height to 8 inches from 7.25 inches. A 43-by-13-inch radiator pan — an increase from 38-by-13 — should increase front downforce as well.

While NASCAR considered using a tapered spacer to restrict horsepower, it opted to keep that the same.

“What they've done to put a little more downforce and drag on them is going to help,” said ESPN analyst Andy Petree, a former Cup crew chief and team owner. "I think they missed an opportunity, though, to take a little power away.

“I think that would have helped some, too, but I think all the things that they've done are in the right direction, and I think it's going to help.”

Contributors: Bob Pockrass, Jeff Owens