Dale Earnhardt Jr. finishes 2nd after dropping 2 laps at race start
Not even the most ardent of Dale Earnhardt Jr. supporters could have claimed with a straight face that NASCAR’s most popular driver was going to have a chance to win the race after watching what transpired on the opening lap at Bristol.
When the field took the green flag, 39 drivers accelerated. The 40th was Earnhardt Jr., who attempted to accelerate too. But his car didn’t cooperate. As the entire field hurtled into turns 1 and 2 – well, those not stuck behind Junior – drivers in your neighborhood might have been going faster than Junior’s car.
What happened? Well, Junior said he accidentally engaged the engine kill switch on the car.
“Yeah, we got the Roush system on our cars for the stuck‑throttle issue, and just warming the brakes up, I engaged that system to kill the throttle,” Junior said. “I was warming the brakes up like I always do, and apparently I applied too much pressure and it killed the motor.
[Related: Kyle Busch hits wall twice and spins as effort for third-straight win falls short]
To get the engine to refire, Junior said he needed to cycle the electronic control unit on the car.
“So I just needed to cycle the ECU, reset that, came to pit road and did that,” He said. “I probably could’ve done it on the track and saved ourselves a lot of trouble, but you don’t know what’s going on at that particular point, and you listen to the first thing anybody tells you when it comes to direction, and the first thing that my spotter said was that if I need to pit, I need to come on now.”
Since Bristol is a place where laps at speed take 15 seconds, Junior was two laps down before he rejoined the race.
He got those laps back thanks to some good strategy and some timely cautions. The race featured 15 yellow flags, so Junior was able to get on the lead lap with plenty of time to spare before the end of the race.
[Related: Quick takeaways from Bristol]
Getting to the front was partially due to simple circumstance too. As the caution flags bunched up over the race’s final 100 laps, Earnhardt Jr. kept finding himself in an even-numbered position. That meant he would start in the preferred outside line on restarts.
“We got a lot of luck on those last several restarts to start on the outside,” Junior said. “And gained some spots just being in the right lane. We didn’t have a good enough car to run in the top five today but [crew chief Greg Ives and crew] did a great job getting those laps back.”
He was sixth on the second-to-last restart. When Regan Smith hit the wall shortly after the green flag flew, Junior was fourth. That meant he got to start on the outside of the second row on the final restart – a spot that may be more advantageous than the inside of the front row.
[Related: Carl Edwards wins at Bristol]
And when the green flag flew for the final time, Junior bolted in front of the rest of the field behind race-winner Carl Edwards, making enjoying the challenge of fighting back from a huge early setback a whole hell of a lot easier.
“Yeah, just trying to have more fun and enjoy it,” Junior said when asked about trying to not panic when the problem hit. “We had a little trouble early, and it just made today more difficult and made the challenge more fun, made it a bigger challenge than it was, and to run second, it’s a great feeling to come back from what we did. It’s something to smile about.
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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!
