FORT WORTH – For a little bit in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. appeared to have a car that could contend with Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski.
But, an unplanned meeting with the wall following a Lap 154 restart for debris quickly saw the opportunity whisk away, as Earnhardt quickly plummeted through the field before a spin in Turn 4 on Lap 168 yielded the seventh caution of the day.
“We just think about what would have happened had we not had the drama,” said Earnhardt who recovered to finish sixth. “I was having too much fun out there and got loose, three-wide after a restart and tagged the wall real good and bent the car up pretty bad and knocked the rear deck lid off of it.”
Even being trapped a lap down, the repairs on the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet proved to return the handling in his favor, as he rocketed through traffic and found himself the first car one lap down.
Desperately wanting a caution, a tire problem for Trevor Bayne on Lap 197 brought out the penultimate caution of the race, but more importantly circling the No. 88 Kelley Blue Book Chevrolet back on to the lead lap, where Earnhardt yet again made another rally.
Keeping the field checked into a green-flag cycle proved to work to Earnhardt’s advantage and despite another meeting with the wall, NASCAR’s most popular driver persevered and withstood a late race caution to finish sixth and earn their 21st top-10 finish of the season.
“We got the chance to fix it and we just had a real fast car,” added Earnhart. “I think we had the best car here. Just can’t hit the wall, but man we were just having fun, running hard. Got to do that every once in a while. I made a mistake today.”
With his finish on Sunday, the 40-year-old gained two spots points from 11th to ninth with a solid opportunity to chase for fifth overall in the standings entering Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway in two weeks.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
