Jimmie Johnson was the top survivor of the Nextel Cup crash-fest Sunday night, as he overcame a NASCAR-record 22 cautions to earn victory in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Johnson’s winning pass came on the very last turn, as he moved high on Bobby Labonte and won the drag race to the finish line by .027 seconds. It is Johnson’s third consecutive victory at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Already the longest race of the year, the plethora of cautions made for over a quarter of the race to be run under yellow (103 of 400 laps). One of those yellow flags was the result of an accident involving Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the #8 Budweiser team. As a result, Dale Jr. was relegated to a 33rd-place finish, 27 laps down to the leaders. He dropped four spots in the point standings to 15th, and is now 350 points behind leader Johnson.
Key Moments: Dale Jr. felt the extremes of a 600-mile race merely 300 miles into the event, as he slipped from 15th to 32nd with an ill-handling car, fell a lap down on the 79th circuit, caught up with a “free pass” on lap 149, and climbed into the top-10 for the first time all evening -- all this before the halfway point of the race. Benefiting from adjustments made by interim crew chief Steve Hmiel, Dale Jr.’s Chevy was in eighth place and turning lap times as fast as it had all night when a wreck on lap 245 doomed any chances of a good finish. Junior made contact with DEI teammate Michael Waltrip entering turn 1, causing both cars to spin wildly into the wall. Three other drivers -- Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, and Terry Labonte – were also wrapped up in the wreck. The Bud team needed 25 minutes in the garage to repair the damage. Dale Jr. returned to the track 27 laps down.
Dale Jr. Quotes: “We were real tight with the race car. We got to working on it, and it was real fast before we got into Michael (Waltrip), and I was pretty happy with it at that point. It still needed a little more work, but you saw how it turned out. It was anybody’s race tonight. I felt like we were in real good shape right up until the accident.
“I’m feeling really confident right now, real good about my team. We had a tough night tonight, but the car was real fast before the crash. As long as the cars are fast, I’ve got to do the rest, and tonight I slipped up a little bit.”
On the accident with Michael Waltrip:
“Well, Michael was just running out there in front of me, and I got a real good run off the corner and tried to go outside of him. I looked to the outside on the front straightaway, and he either moved up or took his natural line through the front straightaway, and I was right there on him. Next thing I know he was spinning around in front of me, and I didn’t know I was as close to him as I was, and I just spun him out. I hate it for him and Tony (Eury) Jr. and all those guys. I just made a mistake. I was running real hard, had a great run off the corner, and I thought I would be able to get to the outside of him and make a pass on him.”
Tony Eury Sr. suggested there might be a problem between you and Michael…
“Yeah, well, I can understand that. There is no problem between me and Michael, and I think Michael understands that. He’s definitely not the person I wanted to run into tonight. It’s unfortunate. Hopefully everybody can come to terms with it one way or another. I know some guys on Michael’s team are probably upset and don’t really know. I mean, if you’re not in the race car, you don’t know what the hell’s going on out there, so I can’t expect anyone to understand what exactly was going on at that moment and time, and how we all came together and wrecked. The people that understand, they’ll move on and we’ll try to get better next week. … (Me and Michael) don’t get into the habit of running into each other. And we don’t really race each other that hard. We actually try to work together most of the time. It’s just unfortunate. We’re out there racing, and he happened to be the guy. It could’ve been anybody else. He’s the last person I wanted to run into, but we were all going for the same piece of real estate.”
On the communication between himself and interim crew chief Steve Hmiel:
“The communication between me and Steve was awesome. We kept getting the car better and better, and kept making changes that were improving the car. We hadn’t run in the 29s all night, and right there before the wreck we were running 29.6. We were a half-second faster than we’d been all night. I know the track was cooling off a little bit, but I felt like we let one slip away here. We could’ve had us a good top-five or even a victory tonight.”
On all the wrecks that happened tonight, which resulted in a record 22 cautions:
“The track’s a little slick. Just a lot of grip in spots, and there’s spots where there’s no grip. Once you got the car working pretty good, it wasn’t that big a deal; wasn’t that tough to drive. But the car was real hard to drive if you had a push or a loose condition. Probably do some good to put some asphalt down I think, ‘cause the track’s tearing up a little bit anyways.”
Best Radio Chatter: After struggling with an extremely tight car early in the race, Dale Jr. began seeing improvements after a lap-117 pit stop.
Dale Jr.: “I had a better car right there than I had all day. So keep positive.”
Steve Hmiel (crew chief): “Absolutely. We’ll be fine. You’re laps times are showing that.”
After earning the free pass on lap 149 as a result of being the first car one lap down:
Dale Jr.: “WHOOOOOOHOOOOOO! Hell yeah! I’m tighter now than I was before, but the track’s getting colder, too. So keep working on it, buddy! YEAH!
Jimmy Kitchens (spotter): “Looks good from up here guys.”
Between laps 199 and 238, there were a total of six caution flags, allowing the Bud driver to make this short quip under the 14th yellow:
Dale Jr.: “Man, I bet they’re wearing all them Dale Jr. commercials out with all these cautions!”
After watching a big crash in front of him on lap 379:
Dale Jr.: “Second verse, same as the first.”
During a red-flag period, which came out to help clean up a wreck just shy from the end:
Dale Jr.: “Man, we could’ve won the hell out of this race.”
Hmiel: “Yeah, depending on how it played out. That’s all right. We learned an awful lot.”
Dale Jr.: “You’re car got good enough to finish in the top five, even without all this craziness, ya know.”
Hmiel: “Well that’s good news. These guys do a nice job.”
Today's Stats
Started: 15th
Finished: 33rd
Led: --
Points: 15th place (1,397 points / -350 out of first)
Best Pit Stop: Stop 7 of 12 / four tires and fuel in 12.69 seconds / lap 201
Budweiser, the King of Beers.
Thanks to Jade Gurss and Mike Davis from fingerprint inc. for sending the race reports and updates.
fingerprint inc. -
-- Anheuser-Busch NASCAR Publicity
-- Dale Earnhardt Jr. / No. 8 Budweiser team
blogs and info: www.fingerprintonline.com
www.Budweiser.com |
