HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Fighting handling woes in the latter stages of Saturday afternoon’s Ford EcoBoost 300 had Elliott Sadler on the outside looking in for his first NASCAR XFINITY Series championship.
Then a caution waved with eight laps left.
Game changer.
Sadler’s JR Motorsports team made a gutsy two-tire call that gained him 10 positions on pit road for a three-lap shootout.
The end result wasn’t a championship, but it was incredibly close.
Sadler restarted the Ford EcoBoost 300 in second, on the inside of race leader Cole Whitt, who elected to stay out during the event’s final caution.
As the cars hammered down at the start / finish line, Whitt’s car fumbled and set cars jockeying for position. Sadler was overpowered by a hard-charging Daniel Suarez who passed Sadler’s No. 1 OneMain Chevrolet before the backstretch and sailed to his third win of the season – but more importantly, his first XFINITY Series driver’s championship.
Despite being on older rubber, Sadler still managed to claim third and snag the runner-up position in the final championship standings.
“Yeah, you know, it was not exactly what we wanted,” said Sadler. “We had to fight back there at the end. We had to make a pit strategy call and put two tires on, and was looking forward to just trying to get some clean air and then try to dictate the restart and see if I could hold these guys off with four tires there at the end, and you just the 14 didn’t go, so I hesitated a little bit, and (Suarez) did a good job and got a good run on me. I just kind of made a little bit of mistake there on the restart.”
The No. 14 (car) Sadler referred to was Whitt driving in his second XFINITY race of the year for Mark Smith’s TriStar Motorsports.
Running their own race and vying for crucial points in the championship car owner standings, Whitt’s bold call backfired and caused the finish to be soaked in controversy.
Sadler’s teammate Justin Allgaier and Suarez’s teammate Erik Jones saw their XFINITY Series championship hopes fizzle when Whitt’s No. 14 Florida Lottery Toyota went bankrupt.
Understandably, both drivers were frustrated and angered by what transpired on the track.
“I was asking for it. I was asking for it because with the two tires, you kind of want to be on the high line,” added Sadler.
“I don’t know, Daniel’s car was really fast, but I was going to try to hold him down, and then when the 14 didn’t go on the restart, I actually kind of stopped and hesitated. The green flag was waving, but he wasn’t going, so I didn’t know really what to do. I was like, man, this is Indy all over again.
“So I kind of hesitated, and I think that allowed Daniel to get a good run on me and cost me the championship.”
After spending the last two seasons with two different races teams, Sadler turned to close friend Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his team JR Motorsports as an opportunity to revive his XFINITY Series career – but more importantly put the Emporia, Va. native in contention for a championship.
On Saturday, Sadler finished second in the final XFINITY Series points rundown for the third occasion.
Wins, faith and consistency kept the No. 1 OneMain team alive not only during the regular season, but even more so during the Chase.
A strong season on track was often subdued with Sadler opening up about personal situations away from the track, including the recent medical setbacks of his mother, who was in attendance on Saturday at Homestead.
“This is by far the hardest because I feel like this is the best team I’ve probably ever worked with,” Sadler spoke. “Before when I’ve come to Homestead, I’ve been a few points back, and like if certain situations happened, you know, you might could win, but it’s a long shot, but here with four guys even, we all wanted to win. We all felt like we all had a chance of winning.
“With the team I have now, love them to death, and we’ve had such good race cars all year. We felt like we could come in here and compete and we made a great pit call there at the end to get some clean air, but yeah, it hurts, because I felt like we have prepped for so long for this race, and it didn’t go as well as we want through the middle part of it.”
Being a part of the inaugural XFINITY Series Chase layout, Sadler says there isn’t much he’d change about his performance Saturday should he find himself in a similar position 12 months
from now.
“I don’t know, I felt like we did everything we were supposed to do to get to this position,” offered Sadler. Both our teams (Allgaier) were in it, two out of four, 50 percent. We felt like we both brought our best cars here to Homestead, and we continued all night and Justin really continued all race long. I don’t think it’s anything negative we can take from it other than not hold a trophy.
“I felt like our team did what it was supposed to do. It gave us, the drivers, a legitimate shot of winning a championship, and that’s all we can ask for. From Dale and Kelley all the way down through everybody in the shop, they work their butts off to make sure we had a legitimate shot at holding up that trophy tonight, and that’s what hurts the most is you don’t know until the checkered flag if you’re going to hold the trophy or not. It used to be predetermined, but really kind of, but now with this new format.
“It’s just part of this format, but it’s great for the fans. I think it’s great for our sport. It shows a lot of emotion, and I think tonight’s race played out the way it should be. But all four of us really raced hard with each other up front, and Daniel just got the better of us.”
Of course, Sadler knows more than anyone – luck often contributes to success and memories.
Next November, the 41-year-old hopes to have enough luck to not only make The Chase, but finally earn the title as NASCAR XFINITY Series champion.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
