Despite qualifying outside the top 20, Dale Earnhardt Jr. entered the race confident that he would have a good run. That confidence proved true as he crossed the finish line third. However, it wasn’t an easy night, though.
He started off the night strong, making his way through the field and cracking the top 10 just past lap 60, posting times comparable to the leaders.
“We started out a really quick car,” he commented. “We were happy with our car in practice so I anticipated being competitive, and I think we drove up inside of top 10 there.”
The first round of pit stops, though, would put a damper in his positive run. He came off pit road in the top-10 at lap 67, but would have to make a return trip to pit road due to some lugnuts missing on the left rear. Beginning this year, NASCAR changed the rules and set it up to where the teams police themselves, rather than NASCAR monitoring the situation. Earnhardt credits his crew guys for stepping up and saying they left the lugnuts loose, or else that could’ve presented bigger problems during the run.
“You’ve got to understand how serious a situation is,” he commented. “You get out there on the race track and we got the corner speeds are 18 miles an hour faster at Vegas, 18 miles an hour faster in the middle of the corner, and if you lose a wheel going that fast, it’s going to be very hard. So you have to have guys that are up front and honest that you trust. If your tire guy done makes a mistake, if he makes a mistake and raises his hand and says look, man, I made a mistake, you catch it right then, right under the caution, you get it fixed, you get a chance to get back going. Otherwise if you don’t speak up, you get a bad vibration, the driver is going to come in, and he ain’t going to knock his head against the fence out there when you think the tire is coming off and you lose a lap. Then you’re in big trouble.”
He would restart in the 30th position and was able to make his way through the field once again to return to the top 10 of the field. He kept moving his way towards the front, cracking the top-five after a strong restart on the outside.
A caution would fly at lap 309 for Cole Whitt getting into the wall, resulting in pit strategy calls being made. Earnhardt Jr.’s team made the choice to go with four tires, setting him up to start in the 10th spot. On the first lap after the restart, he would quickly make his way up to the top three. Jamie McMurray pulled out to the early lead, leaving Earnhardt to battle Kevin Harvick for second. Off the corner, Earnhardt had Harvick cleared – but decided not to slide up. Rather than chasing down McMurray, Earnhardt was stuck battling Harvick longer, with Harvick eventually going by followed by Jimmie Johnson.
“We didn’t have quite enough for the 4 (Harvick) or the 48 (Johnson) until right at the end,” Earnhardt commented. “I think from 20 to go to 10 to go we were the best car. If I had been able to get in front of the 4, I had him cleared off of 2, but he was right on my corner and I really didn’t know for sure whether he was there or not. I passed him on the bottom and I didn’t like the top early in the run, so I wanted the bottom in 3 and 4, so I stayed down there, and he beat me around 3 and 4. But if I maybe could have pulled in front of him there, maybe I could have held him and the 48 off because the 48 was still behind us at that time.”
Johnson would grab the lead late and pulled away from the field, leaving Harvick and Earnhardt to battle for second. The battle went back and forth, with Harvick edging Earnhardt at the line.
“I just like racing here,” he expressed. “I think it was a good show. It was raining debris out there for a while, and we were needing some green-flag runs to get some of the track position back that we were having trouble keeping, and finally the rain shower of debris ended and we were able to finish the race. It’s a long race, and you get mentally prepared for it because it’s pretty tough. It feels almost like the 600 in some ways. It’s a slick old track, and the pace slows down. You work your guts out in there driving that car around there because the track is so slick, so it’s a very physical race, and I had a blast.”
For Earnhardt, it marks his fifth top-five of the season and considering that he has yet to win a race this year, every point matters in making sure that he gets into the Chase for the Championship.
“It’s not a real serious situation that’s kind of bugging you, but it’s in the back of your mind,” he commented. “One thing I don’t know about this new system is will we have 16 winners this year? I don’t know. It don’t look like it the way Harvick’s running. If he wins enough races, the odds are not really good to have 16 winners, and if we don’t win a race, I think we’re a good enough team to put enough points together to get one of them spots in the back, so I’m probably worrying for nothing.”
Earnhardt added despite that knowledge, he doesn’t want to assume things and doesn’t want to be sitting at Richmond counting the points to make sure that he makes the Chase. So far, he’s off to the right note this season.
