BRISTOL, Tenn: For some of Friday night’s Food City 300 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, you thought you were watching a race back from the 1998 NASCAR Xfinity Series season.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in the field and dominating the race. Unfortunately, his rare start in the series ended on Lap 271 when the JR Motorsports driver experienced a fire inside his No. 88 Hellmann’s Chevrolet Camaro leaving him with a 30th place finish.
Despite being nervous about qualifying for the 38-car field Friday afternoon, Earnhardt had little to worry about. The first car to tackle the 0.533-mile in time trials hours before the race, Earnhardt clicked off the 15th quickest lap and setting himself up for relatively good track position for the 300-lap race.
Earnhardt took his time at the start of the NASCAR Xfinity Series Playoff race – but as the race went green in Stage 1, Earnhardt methodically moved forward.
By the end of Stage 1, Earnhardt was ninth.
A strong pit stop at the end of the stage netted NASCAR’s most popular driver a few positions on the race track for the Stage 2 restart. A fast race car continued to propel the two-time NASCAR Xfinity Series champion forward throughout Stage 2 before finishing fourth at the green-white checkered flag.
The JR Motorsports team elected to keep their driver on the track for the start of the third and final stage which landed the 48-year-old Earnhardt into the race led where he led 47 laps consecutively.
The caution waved on Lap 217 for an accident between Richard Childress Racing teammates Sheldon Creed and Austin Hill. Earnhardt pitted under the yellow for his last pit stop of the race.
With tires underneath him, Earnhardt began his charge back through the field, re-entering the top-five and hunting down the lead pack.
Inside the final 50 laps of the race, Earnhardt would remain in contention for the win alongside Kaulig Racing’s Daniel Hemric, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Cole Custer and his JR Motorsports teammate Justin Allgaier, but late in the race Earnhardt radioed to his team that there was smoke forming inside the cockpit.
Five laps later at Lap 271 and 29 laps from the finish, Earnhardt while running fourth abruptly headed to pit road as he reported a fire inside his No. 88 Hellmann’s Chevrolet Camaro.
Stopping in the pit stall of John Hunter Nemechek, Earnhardt exited his race car uninjured but with battle wounds from the fire where his uniform leg had been charred from the flame of the fire.
“The shifter tunnel column caught on fire,” Earnhardt said. “I saw some smoke in the car and I felt that I was like, ‘hopefully that’s not me,’ but it was. That last lap I saw a big fireball down in the tunnel of the car and I felt it. Obviously, my uniform was burning up. I was like, ‘I can’t keep going. I got to stop.’ And usually when you stop the fire gets bigger.
“So I pulled over by the pit stall and some of the guys were pretty alert and they helped me out. We were going to finish with a top-10, maybe top five. We had a shot at winning it if the car was going to run good at the end. Tried not to mess nobody’s night up at the same time, so it was hard, but I had fun.”
Even though Earnhardt did not score his 25th career Xfinity Series win, he enjoyed the race as a racer and as a winning car owner.
“Oh yeah. I had fun. I had a blast. Check that box,” added Earnhardt. “Justin (Allgaier) wins. Brandt car wins. Great for Rick (Brandt) and his team. The Hellmann’s was fast. We drove up there and led lap, I was like, man’s what’s going on? Makes you want to do more.”
The 26-time Cup Series winner will get to do one more Xfinity Series race this season. He’ll be back in a month for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“I’m going to Homestead, so I’ll see everyone there and we’ll have some fun at Homestead riding the fence.”
Follow Chris Knight on X (Formerly Twitter) @Knighter01, IG Threads @TheKnighter01, or email at: [email protected].
