Fort Worth – Dale Earnhardt Jr. probably needed a Goody’s after the NASCAR XFINITY Series race Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway.
But, it wasn’t because he had a tough night in his No. 88 JR Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro. Instead it was the outcome of a grueling battle with eventual winner Erik Jones in the O’Reilly Auto Parts 300.
Making a rare start on the XFINITY Series tour, Earnhardt flexed his muscle throughout the entire 150-lap event, but when the race extended into a green flag run near the finish, NASCAR’s most popular driver just didn’t have enough to score his 24th career XFINITY victory.
“I’m glad we finished decent,” said Earnhardt. “We struggled. We took off early in the race and I thought we had a great car, but then we got really really loose once it got full dark and cooled off. We worked on a couple adjustments and went the incorrect way and got them back out and starting putting the wedge in. That helped my car a ton, we just never really got in enough in there.
“I don’t think we could have gotten our car good as the No. 20. Erik (Jones) did a great job. Run a great race all night long, had a great car and he did a good job with it.”
The intense battle between Earnhardt and Erik Jones, the second youngest NASCAR XFINITY Series winner at Texas Motor Speedway kept the crowd on their feet.
“I was trying to make it fun,” added Earnhardt. “In the long Cup races you give and take a lot more. In these races, there kinda short and you need the track position. You can’t just layover to the leader. You can try to make them burn their stuff up. Especially at a track like this where it’s slick.
“You get a guy underneath you and burn his stuff up and it’s kinda what you want to do here. I thought the racing was good, we had fun in the car.”
Knowing he had the car to beat and expecting pressure from a closing Brad Keselowski, the Byron, Michigan native gave a shot to Earnhardt on the backstretch with 56 laps remaining, but Earnhardt knew he had to defend the lead from Jones as long as he could.
“He was wanting to go by,” Earnhardt said with a chuckle. “He was probably getting tired of trying to pass me, but I was trying to make it as hard as I could. He had a really really good car. He finally got by us. I knew if I could keep him back there, I could make it real difficult on him. And I think he was getting impatient. But that’s what you gotta do. I was wanting to run him back down a give him a shot, but we never got going.”
Overall, it was a good night for JR Motorsports. In addition to Earnhardt’s third place finish, teammate Regan Smith finished fourth, while defending XFINITY Series champion Chase Elliott placed eighth.
While Friday night was about play for Earnhardt Jr., Saturday night’s Duck Commander 500 will be an opportunity for the Kannapolis, North Carolina native to get back to Victory Lane, but more importantly earn a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
In order to do so, Earnhardt will have a steep climb from his 25th place starting position.
“I think it’s pretty decent. We gotta work on it a little bit. I learned a lot tonight. I’m going to go talk to Greg (Ives) and make a few changes. We had great speed.”
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
