Dale Earnhardt Jr. earns first consecutive top-10 Cup finishes of season
Hendrick Motorsports' Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished ninth in Saturday night's NASCAR Sprint Cup Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Scene
BRISTOL, Tenn. – For the first time this season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has consecutive top-10 NASCAR Sprint Cup finishes.
Fresh off a third-place finish six days earlier at Michigan, Earnhardt Jr. came home ninth in Saturday night’s Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway for his fifth top-10 in the season’s 24 races.
“It was a good finish for us,” the Hendrick Motorsports driver said. “The car was working good in practice and when the race started we had some work to do. We made it better.
“I'm real proud of my team. My guys worked really hard. They had some awesome pit stops and we just had a pretty decent car.”
Earnhardt Jr., who struggled in the early portion of the race before adjustments improved his Chevrolet’s handling, was disappointed that he didn’t end up a little better in the final rundown.
He surged into the top five in the closing laps, only to lose several spots as the race drew to its conclusion. Earnhardt Jr. believed he might have been better off without the gaggle of late-race cautions that slowed the action five times in the final 80 laps.
He was fourth on the final restart with four laps to go before sliding backward.
“That last run there we were real tight,” said Earnhardt Jr., who started 27th. “I needed long runs. My car wasn't good at the restarts and those guys behind us I think had a little bit better tires than we did. I'm real happy. We were running real good. It's a shame we had all them cautions.
“I think [second place-finishing teammate] Mark [Martin] could have won the race and we could have probably finished a little bit better. All them cautions just stacked everybody up and we didn't have a good car on the restarts. It's just a shame. We worked hard though."
