Earnhardt and Johnson: There's 'a lot of racing left'

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Midway through Sunday's race at Kansas Speedway, half of Hendrick Motorsports' field was in the garage area.

Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were two of several Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup contenders to experience trouble in the opening race of the Contender Round.

"Well, it just means we've got to be on our game at Charlotte and Talladega," Johnson said following his incident. "There is a lot of racing left."

The No. 48 Lowe's crew was able to repair Johnson's Chevrolet SS in the garage, and Johnson returned to the track and was scored 40th.

"Certainly (we) need Ws, I would assume, going forward," he said.

Earnhardt was leading the race when a tire issue caused him to hit the wall and head to the garage.

Like Johnson, he was able to return to the track thanks to repairs made by the No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew team, and he was scored 39th.

"I’ve got to hand it to the guys -- man, that was a great race car," Earnhardt said. "We hadn’t been running very good the last several weeks. But man, we came in here with a great attitude and a great fast car. This is the car that we won Pocono with both times -- it’s a good car. Hopefully we didn’t hurt it too bad and we’ll just try to go to the next one. This is going to hurt us in the points, obviously, but we’ve got a lot of racing left and a lot of races to win. We’re running good.”

As Johnson alluded, the next two races in the Contender Round come at Charlotte -- where Hendrick Motorsports has the second-most wins of any track, 18 -- and Talladega, another double-digit-win track for the organization.

In the current Chase standings, Johnson is in 12th, Earnhardt is in 11th, Kasey Kahne is in ninth and Jeff Gordon is in eighth.

Eight drivers will advance to the Eliminator Round after Talladega.

“The points, it’s going to hurt," Earnhardt said. "It is what it is. We just have to go to the next race and try to win.”