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Hendrick Motorsports finally made it to victory lane this season.
However for a good portion of Saturday night's Phoenix 500, it looked like it would be Dale Earnhardt Jr., not Jimmie Johnson, breaking the winless drought.
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| Dale Earnhardt Jr. has learned patience, and is being rewarded in the standings. (AP) |
But the wheel of fortune didn't spin right for the No. 88 team, and when the fuel mileage game played out, Earnhardt Jr. was left out of victory lane once again.
While Johnson was able to stretch his final fuel load to the finish line and score his second successive Phoenix victory, Earnhardt was forced to pit for a splash of gas in order to make it to the finish.
"I am not frustrated," Earnhardt insisted after being credited with a seventh-place finish. "Had a good finish, proud of my team, had a great car. I don't know what our expectations truly were going in to the race. But I don't think they were that good. I don't know if we could have made it. I don't know when we stopped, or how much (gas) I was burning a lap. I can't do the math. I just do what I'm told. We did the right thing. We can't run out and finish out of the top 10. We did the right thing."
The wacky finish topped a roller coaster weekend for Earnhardt and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. as they struggled to find the right setup for their car on the unique, 1-mile track.
They even reached out to their Hendrick colleagues for some advice.
"Me and Tony Jr. came up with some ideas and borrowed some ideas from Chad (Knaus, Johnson's crew chief), which helped my car amazingly," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We were running good at night. Right there at the end I think I just drove the tires off of it, I guess. I was losing ground."
Earnhardt and Eury almost borrowed Knaus and company's fuel strategy down the stretch as well.
"Jimmie's crew told us they were going to try and, for us, it was too much of a gamble just to try to get second place," Earnhardt said. "We did the smart thing and came in. He already had us beat on the race track. The way this business is a lot of times, when you think you are having one of your worst days, you end up having a great day or a day that turns out much better than you thought."
Seventh might have been somewhat disappointing but it kept Earnhardt near the top of the Sprint Cup Series point standings; he now stands third, only 86 behind leader Jeff Burton.
So despite still not having a victory since 2006, this season is still much better than the one Earnhardt endured last year in his final campaign with DEI.
"There isn't one thing that sticks out, it's overall as a whole," he said. "Hendrick has a great organization in every aspect of it. They've been doing it a long time and have worked very hard setting a standard. They just don't have any weak area. They work on anything they see they need to fix immediately. It's just a good company to work for and there's not one thing that's like this is why. It's just a lot of different stuff."
This year's consistent finishes are much different than Earnhardt's 2007 season, when he was plagued by a multitude of engine problems at DEI. Mechanical problems have not been part of his Hendrick tenure, helping Earnhardt's record of consistent finishes.
And while the start of the season has by his own admission gone better than anticipated, Earnhardt's goals are still the same as they were before the year began.
"They're about the same," he said. "I just want to be able to run as good as my car is, which we typically roll with a good race off the trailer and I just want to get a good finish with it."
Mission accomplished Saturday night.
