Little E misses Chase for 2nd time in 3 years
Long, difficult season ends with one more disappointment for popular driver
 | “We deserved to be in the Chase,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said after a blown engine ended his night in Richmond on Saturday. “We love racing. We’ll be all right. This is disappointing. These dang motors.” |
Gary Knapp / AP |
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RICHMOND, Va. - Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s season of turmoil won’t end with him competing for a championship, but as NASCAR’s 10-race playoff begins next week, at least he’ll get to see how his future could look at powerful Hendrick Motorsports.
The most popular driver in the Nextel Cup Series came up short of the Chase for the championship for the second time in three years Saturday night when he faced huge odds to make it interesting and never gave the guys ahead of him reason for concern.
“We deserved to be in the Chase,” Earnhardt said after a blown engine ended his night. “We love racing. We’ll be all right. This is disappointing. These dang motors.”
Earnhardt started 21st and, more importantly, 128 points behind Kevin Harvick for the 12th and final spot in the Chase. To steal the spot, Earnhardt needed to win for the first time in 52 races, lead the most laps and have Harvick finish 33rd or worse.
But while Earnhardt’s future Hendrick teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson wheeled two of the best cars of the night around Richmond International Raceway, Earnhardt never led and never gave his “Red Army” of fans a chance to roar.
“We broke another motor and they seem to fall apart when they plug them into my car,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know what it is but we’ve had a good car all year long.”
At one point Saturday night, he was second behind Gordon, but rather than pressing NASCAR’s other most popular driver for the top spot, he instead moved aside to let Tony Stewart take second after a few laps, and soon was overtaken by Johnson, too.
Even when he ran in the top five for long stretches of the second half of the race, the drivers he was chasing both overcame early troubles to run far ahead of where they needed to be to cement their inclusion in the Chase, and Junior was out again.
When his car started smoking heavily with seven laps to go, it was official, and he was left on the outside, much like two-time champion Tony Stewart was last year.
Still, it’s not the end of the world, Earnhardt said.
“There ain’t no reason to get all upset and bent out of shape about anything because there’s cooler stuff right around the corner and there’s all kinds of things to be excited about, and I’m not just talking about next year,” he said.
“I’m saying every day in life, you know? We’ll have fun and laugh and enjoy ourselves as we race for the rest of the season. Hopefully, we can win some races there in the last 10 to put a period on what’s been pretty much an up and down season.”
He finished 30th, Harvick was seventh, and No. 11 Kurt Busch, an even longer shot to get bumped from the playoffs, wound up ninth. Earnhardt came up 198 points shy.
For Earnhardt, whose late father shares the career record of seven series championships, it was just the latest disappointment in a long, difficult season.
Questioned even before it began for his commitment by stepmother Teresa Earnhardt, who also owns Dale Earnhardt Inc., Junior has seen contentious talks with her end with her refusing to relinquish a controlling interest and him deciding to leave the company founded by his father, and then her refusal to let him take the No. 8 to Hendrick.
He’s gone the entire season without winning a race, hasn’t won at all since May 2006 at Richmond and has spent only eight weeks in the top 12 in driver standings.
The last time he was there was after the Brickyard 400 on July 29. The next week, he finished a season-best second, but dropped to 13th in points when Busch won.
It’s been that kind of season, and one whose conclusion likely will be welcomed, especially if it finds him driving a contending car in the premier series in 2008.
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