Dale Earnhardt Jr. started the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season with a rough outing in the Daytona 500, finishing 36th.
Junior's best finish this season was second, at Atlanta, Texas, Bristol and Pocono. But after Kentucky, where be finished 13th, he was diagnosed with a concussion, and wound up missing the rest of the Sprint Cup season.
Jeff Gordon and Alex Bowman alternated rides in the No. 88 to fill in for Junior, who is expected to be back to racing by the 2017 Daytona 500.
Gordon raced eight races in the No. 88 in 2016, putting up only two Top-10s. Bowman raced 10 events in the No. 88 and put up three Top-10s.
"Thanks to the staff at Darlington for hosting our team and to NASCAR for giving us the opportunity to put a car on the track," Earnhardt said after testing at Darlington Raceway in December. "I'll do more testing in January to help knock the rust off. When it's time to go to Daytona, I’ll be ready."
Earnhardt will be 42 when he's back in a race car for the 2017 season, the final year of his five-year contract with Hendrick Motorsports. He is expected to sign another contract with the No. 88 team, but after that, his racing career is unclear.
"Dale is one of the hardest-working patients I've ever encountered," Dr. Mickey Collins, Junior's doctor thrpugh 2016, said in a Hendrick Motorsports release. "He's done everything we've asked, and we believe he is ready to compete at a professional level again and can withstand the normal forces of a race car driver. Dale has been very open with us, and we've had plenty of time for his treatment, so we feel very good about his long-term prospects and how this has been managed by everyone involved."
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