TALLADEGA, Ala. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. left it all on the track.
Starting fifth, Earnhardt led 61 laps Sunday afternoon at Talladega Superspeedway in his bid to win and advance in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
But he came up just inches short of moving on to the Eliminator Round.
Instead, he was eliminated.
“I’m proud of what we did today,” Earnhardt said of his second-place result. “We did everything we needed to do, just fell a little short -- about the width of the splitter.”
The race came down to a green-white-checkered attempt that saw Earnhardt and eventual race-winner Joey Logano line up side-by-side. But soon after the green flag waved, a caution flag flew due to an incident back in the pack.
It effectively ended the race, and after looking at the scoring review, NASCAR determined that Logano narrowly edged out Earnhardt for the win.
“Another 100 yards, I’d have been in the lead, but NASCAR makes the calls,” Earnhardt said. “They’re the governing body and I have 100 percent faith in the choices that they make. I’m not going to be too upset about it – I did everything I could.”
That included bouncing back from a pit-road penalty that forced Earnhardt to make a pass-through and fall outside of the top 25 midway through the race. He raced the No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew Chevrolet SS all the way back to the lead.
And when he lost that lead after taking two tires on pit road and many competitors took only fuel, he raced all the way back up to the runner-up position to even have a chance at the win during the green-white-checkered attempt.
“I’m proud of myself, proud of my team,” he said. “My guys did a good job on pit road – we had a little issue, but if this group sticks together, we’re going to do great things next year. I believe in all of them. I’m proud of what we did.”
Earnhardt said that ultimately the No. 88 team should have performed better in the first two races of the Contender Round, and the slim second-place finish would not have mattered.
Regardless, he will continue to look to the future, and for the No. 88 team as a whole, Earnhardt believes it is very bright.
“We’ve got to try to win another race before the race is out, have some fun – Martinsville’s coming up, I’m excited about that, and we’ve got a great team,” he said. “This is my first year with (No. 88 crew chief) Greg (Ives), we’re just going to get better. He’s going to get better. We’ve got a lot to look forward to. It’s disappointing, but I’m proud of the car and we really worked hard and we did a hell of a job today.”