DOVER, Del. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. had another solid weekend but solid just isn’t cutting it for him anymore.
He finished second to teammate Jimmie Johnson, who led a race high 243 of 400 laps. It was a record win for Johnson as Earnhardt Jr. tried to overtake him with four tires coming off the race’s final pit stop and restart.
“I’ll be honest with you, it sucks to lose regardless of who wins. It’s probably harder to run second than it is fifth or tenth. When you have a car like we had today, you don’t get good cars every week, you like to capitalize,” he said. “It doesn’t bother me that it was Jimmie. I know Jimmie is going to be good here. Plus he’s my teammate. I want to see him do well. When he does well, it indirectly affects us and benefits us.
“I wasn’t hoping he was going to blow a tire or anything there at the end, I was just trying to catch him. If I could get to him, I thought I would be able to get by him. We just couldn’t do it.”
Starting on the pole for the second time this season, the No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet was one of the quickest all weekend. It led the first 25 laps of the race before Earnhardt Jr. before briefly swapping the lead with point leader Matt Kenseth. Still searching for his first win of 2013, Earnhardt Jr. was in firm control until green flag pit stops began.
He missed the entrance to pit road, knowing he couldn’t pit since he wasn’t able to get all four tires inside the commitment zone, and had to wait an extra lap to come down for service. Later in the race he came down much slower than the rest of the leaders, which again cost him the lead.
“If you really look at the race as a whole, they did cost us a little bit, at least the mistake I made missing pit road completely,” he noted about his pit road miscues. “We had the lead, gave up the lead. Jimmie had the lead and was able to take advantage of that clean air when it counted. If I had not given up that track position, had a smart enough race to keep the lead when it counted right at the end, we might have won the race. It would have been hard to get by us, just like it was hard to get by Jimmie.”
Coming in slow wasn’t as big a factor Earnhardt Jr. felt, as missing pit road. He came on pit road just as hard as he had been all day but Mark Martin in front of him held him up when he entered much slower than the 88.
It capped two weeks of “awesome” cars for Earnhardt Jr., who had a chance to win both races. Sunday after leading 77 laps, he thought for sure four tires against Johnson’s two would be the winning strategy.
“I feel like in the last couple of weeks, we’ve been able to really show what our team’s capable of. We’ve been really quick on the sheet every day, fast in practice,” he said as he moved to 10th in points but still remains over a full race behind the leaders. “The changes we’re making, everything seems to be working right, going in the direction you want. I feel like when we get it right, we can compete and we can win.
“We came really close today. I don’t feel like today was a highlight for us. I think this is how it’s supposed to be every week. I know that competition’s difficult and tough, Jimmie being one of the best driver’s the sport has ever seen. Running at one of his better racetracks, it was going to be a challenge. But I felt like we had enough car and tires for sure to beat him.”
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I have never seen so much attention place on a second place car, it was disgusting. It was almost like the media felt if they praised Jr. long enough or talked about his second place finish long enough somehow it would really mean that he won. These paid shills are a big part of the problem why Nascar is in the bad way it is. But as usual, nobody see’s it.