Earnhardt Jr. made contact with the right-rear quarter panel of Kurt Busch’s car early in the race, then battled the handling of his car. He later overcame an ill-timed caution en route to finishing 11th.
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“I thought we had a good car yesterday in practice and I was kind of looking forward to the race and then when we started we were real tight,” he said. “The No. 41 [of Busch] came in front of me off of [Turn] 4 and I just couldn’t do anything. He was clear, but I couldn’t stop. I had so much momentum and that hurt the left-front real bad and bent the splitter.
“So, we fought that all day long. We changed a shock and helped the balance a little bit. We changed and changed and changed and worked on the car all day. We got it to where we could race a little bit.”
Things were looking better with Earnhardt Jr. once more moving into the top 10 when he opted to pit a little early — then watched the caution flag come out.
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“We were up in the top 10 pretty good and short-pitted a little bit for that last run and that damn caution came out for a piece of debris in the middle of the cycle,” he said. “That killed us.”
Still, he continued to praise the way the cars are racing this season — just as he has after the recent races in which he has enjoyed better outcomes. Earnhardt Jr. entered this race with three consecutive top-10 finishes. Even though that ended, he still showed enthusiasm for Sunday’s racing.
“I had a blast,” he said. “I love racing here regardless of what aero package we have. This is a fun track. I like the low downforce. What can I say? I’m having fun and had a good time today. Usually, you would be real frustrated driving the cars we drove the last two years finishing 11th, but I had fun running anywhere on the racetrack. No matter where we were we were racing somebody and driving the thing.”
