Dale Earnhardt Jr. gains more ground on Chase field with eighth-place finish at New Hampshire
Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished eighth at New Hampshire. // LaDon George, NASCAR Illustrated
LOUDON, N.H. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back among the serious contenders to make the Chase For The Sprint Cup as he has finishes of seventh, 11th and eighth in his last three races.
Now all he has to do is complete the comeback.
Earnhardt Jr. turned a 31st starting position into an eighth-place finish in the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 on Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and now sits just three points behind Carl Edwards for 12th in the standings.
“We unload top-10 cars at the beginning of the week,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The next step for us, I guess, is make the improvements from there.
“We were really fast at one point in the race, but whatever we had, I gave to [teammate and winner] Jimmie [Johnson] because I was running right there with him and they changed the tires and he took off and we were stuck where we running. I wasn’t as fast as I was before that. I am still happy.”
Gaining so many spots wasn’t done by tricky track-position strategy. Earnhardt Jr. took four tires on every stop and drove his Hendrick Motorsports car through the field to gain positions.
Even on the last pit stop with 18 laps remaining, Earnhardt Jr. took four tires and dropped four spots to restart 13th. He gained those back over the final 14 laps and wound up eighth.
“We were too far back [at the start of the race], and I don’t think two tires would have helped us out unless we could have got out in the top-three cars, and I don’t think we ever were in position to do that,” said crew chief Lance McGrew.
“At the end of the race, I knew a lot of those guys were going to two-tire [stops] and we were so good on four [fresh tires] from the get-go, it wasn’t worth it. We could either be the last guy on two tires or the first guy on four, and I’d rather be the first guy on four.”
Earnhardt Jr. said there’s a reason for the improvement in the team after five consecutive finishes of 18th or worse.
“We’ve been working really hard,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Sometimes that bears fruit. Lance is working really, really hard. He’s taking care of the car and thinking all the time.”
McGrew said the improvements could be part racing luck, but Earnhardt Jr. has gone from 87 points behind 13th to just three points back in three weeks.
“Our qualifying still isn’t where it needs to be, but the simple fact is the progression of the race is playing in our favor and nothing is happening to us,” McGrew said. We’re not cutting tires, we’re not having problems on pit road. We’re not in the fence.”
Things could have gotten dicey for Earnhardt Jr., who at times Sunday was racing Ryan Newman and Clint Bowyer – two other drivers just outside the Chase – and at other times was racing Kurt Busch and Johnson, two drivers among the tops in the sport right now.
“I like racing around the good guys, racing up there around Kurt [Busch] and Jimmie [Johnson] and all those guys that were right there with us,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “That’s fun racing with those guys.”
But there’s still work left to be done.
“At the end of the day, the point sheet is what matters,” McGrew said. “Thirteenth, three points out, is not going to get you in the Chase.
“I’m real excited about the cars we’re bringing to the race track and the job the guys are doing. The simple fact is, we have closed in [nearly] 100 points in the last three races, which is pretty impressive. We’ve got a good string of tracks coming up for us, and I look forward to continuing top-10s. I’ll take 10 more of them.”
