Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s night in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway went drastically haywire after engine issues, during the latter stages, prohibited him from competing inside the top dozen.
Earnhardt Jr., who’s never won the famed Memorial Day event at Charlotte, finished 19th, two laps down, after nursing his machine to the checkered flag with a sour engine an intense vibration.
“(The car) was trying to blow up. We had a lot of real high water pressure and a real bad vibration,” Earnhardt Jr. explained. “The vibration was so bad I was afraid to hold it wide open because it would just get so bad at the end of the straightaway. I thought we were about to break the motor. “
“We came in (to the pits) and knocked the pressure out of it and the vibration slowly got better and never completely went away. Something (was) wrong with the car.”
Hendrick Motors – which supplies for multiple teams in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series – will have to return to shop and diagnose the problem this week, according to Earnhardt.
‘We don’t know (what happened). We have to find out,” Earnhardt Jr. further expressed. “They’ll take it back and see what’s wrong with (the car). I’m glad we tried to keep going. I don’t know what’s wrong with it but we’ve got a little problem with that car. But it was very fast. I’m very happy with the speed.”
‘June Bug’, who won the Daytona 500 earlier this season, told reporters he felt fortunate to finish the race rather then in the garage, making his night easier to cope with.
“I’m real happy with the speed in the car. We were able to at least finish 19th tonight. We could have blown up and finished in the back. We had a really good fast car and I’m really excited about all the races coming up,” Earnhardt added.
Though, after having a disappointing result, Junior understands that teams struggle on occasions, however, he wants to dismiss the negative and begin exploiting the positives heading into the summer months
“You’re going to have some bad weeks and you’ve got to be able to roll with them. This was one of them and we just have to look at the positives and try not to dwell too much on what happened,” Earnhardt concluded with. “We just need to go home and find out what it was and see if we can learn something.”
