Dale Earnhardt Jr. comes up just short at Talladega

For the second-straight season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. needed a win at Talladega to advance in the Chase. He came up short again on Sunday, but he was a hell of a lot closer than he was in 2014.

Junior finished second to Joey Logano after NASCAR ruled that Logano was ahead of Junior when the race’s final caution flag came out. A crash happened as the field took the green on a green-white-checker restart. Since NASCAR had instituted a rule that there would be only one GWC attempt at Talladega, the race was over when the caution flag flew.

Logano and Junior had restarted on the front row when the green flag flew. After the race, Junior said he had been nervous all weekend. He won at Talladega in the spring and led a race-high 61 laps on Sunday. But he’s not moving on to the third round of the Chase yet again.

“I just wanted to go out there, whatever happened, put forth a good account of myself, my team,” Junior said. “I’m real proud of what we did today. So I can feel good about that. I can look back on a lot of different things that put me in this situation right now, starting with the first two races in this round where we didn’t run well. We got wrecked by [Carl Edwards at Charlotte], and just didn’t run well at Kansas.

“I’m going to get asked about the green‑white‑checkered rule, which I’m fine with it. I feel like no matter the rules, when the race is over, I can live with the result as long as everyone else is going by the same rules. So I felt like, per the rule book, it sorted out and I finished second.  I’m okay with that. We could argue they could have waited another hundred foot to throw the caution, but they didn’t have to. They threw it when they needed to. I’m fine with that.”

While being nervous, Junior said he was confident because he had a good car. And it showed. He had battled back from a pit-road pass through penalty after his team had come over the pit wall too early on a green flag pit stop. Once Junior had caught back up to the pack thanks to a caution, he was back in the front in a matter of minutes.

But he wasn’t at the front when the race ended. Last year, his Chase ended in the midst of a crash at Talladega.

“Well, the best thing that could happen for us is the same thing that happened last year, go win.  We’re disappointed today.  We were disappointed last year when we left Talladega.  But we went to Martinsville and sort of surprised ourselves with our first win there.

“Dang, you know, when I look at that video of all of us jumping up and down on that trailer like idiots, that’s a team that’s not too bothered being knocked out of the Chase right there. If we can go to the racetrack and win, it certainly makes our situation much more bearable. If we could go to Homestead and run well, I’d love to win there. Never won there. I like that track. Running against the wall is a lot of fun. We’ll see.”

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @NickBromberg