Embarrassed Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishes fourth, gets back in top 12
Better to be lucky than good: Dale Earnhardt Jr. struggled Saturday at Daytona, but still came home with a fourth-place finish. // Jim Fluharty, NASCAR Illustrated
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished fourth in the Coke Zero 400 and vaulted back into a spot in the top 12.
And he was not all that happy about it.
Earnhardt Jr. struggled all night at Daytona International Speedway, and he just avoided accidents to finish in the top five.
“We just missed a lot of wrecks and got lucky with the finish,” said Earnhardt Jr., who had finished second in the Daytona 500 in February. “We didn’t have a car to compete tonight. I just apologize to all the fans.”
While he did struggle on the track, Earnhardt Jr. is now 11th in the standings, 46 points ahead of 13th-place Mark Martin with eight races left before the 12-driver Chase For The Sprint Cup field is set.
It is the first time in seven races that Earnhardt Jr. has left in the top 12. He was 17th in the standings five races ago but four consecutive top-11 finishes have him back in the top 12.
“We’re getting a little bit more lucky than I would like,” said Earnhardt Jr., who was 25th in the standings last year. “We’re not running good enough to finish fourth. … You don’t want to make the Chase on just pure luck.”
Earnhardt Jr. and Martin both struggled with their Daytona 500 setups while their Hendrick Motorsports counterparts Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson had stronger cars.
“Jimmie and Jeff had different stuff and I was looking at it and going, ‘Wonder why they’ve got that?’” Earnhardt Jr. said. “And then they ran like they did. So we’ve just got to be smarter.” For parts of the race, Earnhardt Jr. was screaming at crew chief Lance McGrew on the in-car radio. That isn’t an uncommon occurrence, and Earnhardt Jr. thanked his team afterward even though he was disappointed.
“We thought after practice we had a good race car,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “But when the race started, we didn’t. We learned a lesson and we need to work a little bit harder in practice and try to make sure that we’ve covered all our bases because when the race started, we didn’t have a car to compete.
“Lance and the guys worked really hard trying to make it better. … I was just so embarrassed about how we ran all night. I could get up there and wrestle a little bit, but, man, at the beginning of the race it was just awful.”
While he didn’t get the car much better, he did keep it clean enough for the solid run.
“I’ll take a fourth tonight after all that we went through,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We’ve just got to do a better job. We work hard. We’re a good team. We deserve it.”
