Photo Credit: Justin McFarland
REID SPENCER/NASCAR WIRE SERVICE
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s hopes for a second grandfather clock trophy took a blow early in Sunday’s race, when contact from David Ragan’s Toyota sent Earnhardt’s Chevrolet spinning in Turn 2 on Lap 6 of 500.
“The No. 23 (Ragan) pushed up in the middle of the corner and just barely touched us and it cut the left rear tire,” Earnhardt explained after the race.
The driver of the No. 88 Chevy lost a lap in the process and didn’t get it back until Lap 321, when he received a free pass under caution as the highest-scored lapped car. From there, Earnhardt charged to sixth, where he was running when NASCAR called the eighth and final caution on Lap 484.
Earnhardt and crew chief Greg Ives opted for a two-tire pit stop, and with 12 laps left, the No. 88 restarted 10th in the top lane. Stuck on the outside, Earnhardt faded to a 14th-place finish.
“We got higher than that at one point,” Earnhardt said. “The car was fun. We had good long-run speed. Just didn’t end up working out for us as far as the line we were in on our last restart.
The second place guy, we passed him, the No. 20 (Matt Kenseth), but the guy who started fourth–where we would have started if we didn’t pit–finished right in front of me. What do you do? If you can’t start on the inside, you are screwed.”
