Dale Earnhardt Jr. Flies To Victory Lane at Michigan, Ending 143 Race Winless Streak

[media-credit name=”Dan Sanger” align=”alignright” width=”175″][/media-credit]After going 143 races without a win, Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 93 laps on his way to winning the Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway. It marked the 19^th career win for the driver of the No. 88 Diet Mtn. Dew/The Dark Knight Rises/National Guard Chevrolet.

“This is incredible,” Earnhardt said. “I just didn’t know when it would happen. I knew it was going to happen, just didn’t know when.”

With the win, Earnhardt Jr. continues to stand as the only driver to finish in the top-10 in every race this season with 12 top-10s this year. It matches his top-10 total from all of last season. This win also marks Earnhardt Jr.’s first win with Steve LeTarte since the partnership began in 2011.

“This proves to us that our strategy is correct,” crew chief Steve LeTarte said. “You bring fast enough race cars, you don’t have to get out of your comfort zone too far and you don’t have to get super crazy with your pit strategy.  We say it all the time, you just need to put in hard work, hard work every Sunday and this helps us understand that we are not crazy; that our goals and what we have been trying to do has been working.”

When Keselowski pitted with 30 laps to go, handing the lead back over to Earnhardt Jr., who would lead the rest of the way.

Tony Stewart finished second for his seventh top-10 finish of 2012.

“We had a fast car all week until the happy hour session last night, and you know, we just couldn’t get ahold of the racetrack,” Stewart says. “But I’m really proud of Steve Addington and our engineers.  They did a great job overnight and we started the day pretty much toward the front and never really lost that track position all day.  We had a pretty good car that we could pass with.  It was hard to pass, but it wasn’t impossible.  But like I say, I was really, really proud of our guys.”

Matt Kenseth would finish third for his 17^th top 10 in 26 starts at Michigan. Kenseth still leads the points, now four points ahead of Earnhardt Jr.

“We were fortunate to qualify good and the first couple restarts were not great but finally got our way to the front,” Kenseth says. “We had a good fuel-only stop will and led a few laps, got behind in the pits, got behind that one time taking more fuel I guess than everybody else and resurfaced seventh and hard for me to get going on the bottom.  As soon as we pitted under the green, the next stop, we caught a yellow, so we got a lap down. So from there, it was a battle back but we got the car pretty good at the end and we were able to make a pretty good charge and salvage a pretty good day out of it.”

Greg Biffle finished fourth with Johnson fifth, who made his way back up to top five after starting last due to an engine change. Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports team found some engine wear issues after the additional practice on Saturday night.

During practice on Thursday and Friday, the left side tires were blistering. As a result, NASCAR made the decision to bring in new left side tires, while giving the teams an extra practice session on Saturday evening.  Newman also changed his motor after this session, finishing 15^th despite running in the top 10 in the middle of the race.

Meanwhile, other drivers ran into engine problems during the race including Josh Wise, Trevor Bayne and Kyle Busch. It marked the third straight engine issue for Busch.

As a whole, Joe Gibbs Racing did not have a good day.

On a lap 124 restart, Joey Logano would wreck when he tried to avoid David Gilliland. Gilliland got into the wall and when Logano tried to avoid hitting him, he got loose and spun back across the track into the wall, collecting Gilliland and Kasey Kahne.

“We were just restarting there on the outside of the 14 (Stewart) behind the 17 (Kenseth),” Logano said. “There was a slower car up there and I just tried to get around him and got loose or tagged. But we’re not going to let that get us down. We’ve been on a roll lately.”

Then on lap 134, Denny Hamlin would go for a spin, tearing the car apart. When he came down pit road, something underneath the car caught fire, bursting him into flames. He would get out uninjured with the help of Biffle’s and Newman’s team.

“Defiantly got to thank all the crew guys that got me out,” Hamlin said. “Just a tough day. Thought we could run three or four, but just a tough day.”

Next weekend, the Sprint Cup series hits the Sonoma Raceway road course.