CONCORD, N.C. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't start the Contender Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup the way he would've hoped.
His 28th-place finish at Charlotte leaves him in 11th in the standings, 19 points behind the competitor in eighth place, the cutoff spot to advance to the Eliminator Round of the Chase.
But the result hasn't put a damper on his confidence.
"It ain’t over. Don’t worry about that," Earnhardt said. "I mean, we don’t have to go to Talladega and be nervous like those guys that are going to have to play it safe. We can just go hard. So, we’ve got a great car that can win that race. We can go to Kansas and run great. I like that track and don’t see why we can’t run great there and maybe win the race there."
As for what happened at Charlotte, Earnhardt said he lost track of how many times he made contact with the wall.
It began on Lap 69, when contact with a competitor sent him toward the wall. Six laps later he made contact with the wall once again, causing a caution and forcing him to pit road multiple times for repairs.
Finding a slick spot on the track sent him toward the wall again later in the race, and ultimately he fell three laps off the lead.
“We had a pretty decent car," Earnhardt said. "We tried everything we could to get laps back because we had a good enough car to run in the top 20, even after smashing it into the fence after all them times, we still had OK speed; but we just couldn’t get an opportunity to get those laps back."
Up next is Kansas Speedway, where Earnhardt finished third earlier this season.
And the driver of the No. 88 Chevrolet SS stuck to his mantra.
"It ain’t over."