There’s not a bigger Earnhardt fan in the Hendrick camp than Dale Earnhardt Jr. While Petty’s record of 200 career victories is unlikely to ever be duplicated – he competed largely in a different era with far more races each year – Johnson certainly has the potential to reach the second spot on the list.
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“Dale was more aggressive”, Hendrick said.
That’s the thing about Dale Earnhardt – his life and career had and will continue to have lasting effects on every driver that that sets foot in a NASCAR Sprint Cup vehicle. “I had a blast”. He never got to race the Intimidator, who died on a last-lap crash in the 2001 Daytona 500. Man, it was so much fun. “The 4 vehicle (Harvick) was awfully tough”.
“Definitely a gutsy call”, said Johnson about the Knaus strategy. “It was just a great team effort”. Then it hit him, so he took another spin in front of the grandstand, sticking his hand out of the vehicle to hold up three fingers. “But, it worked. And I got rolling around the top and got to where I got this Lowe’s Chevy in Victory Lane”. The field got restarted cleanly, and Harvick and @MartinTruex_Jr battled back and forth for the lead as they pulled away from the rest of the pack.
However, a tire blowout with three laps to go on Ryan Newman’s auto caused the race to go into overtime. “I had to start driving the vehicle different. Pit stops were solid, and it wasn’t a flawless day, but it was a day we can build on and try to get better”.
“We’re excited to try to get on to Vegas and most of all just take what we had today and try to improve on it”, Elliott said. “Everybody on our Jimmy John’s/Busch Chevrolet hung in there all day and we’ll keep at it”.
Harvick took the lead on lap 136.
Harvick, who led 131 of the 325 laps, spun his tires and Johnson shot to the front when the green flag dropped.
GREEN GREEN GREEN: There were a whopping 209 caution-free laps to start the race, a highly rare green-flag run in today’s NASCAR at any point during an event. Harvick restarted second, Busch third and Martin Truex Jr. fourth.
NASCAR caught a crew member placing a wedge wrench on the deck lid of the No. 20 vehicle during fueling, a violation of the rule that prohibits the fueler from performing “any adjustments or other pit stop procedures while the fuel can coupler is engaged”. To make matters worse, after Kenseth was black-flagged for the penalty, his crew, preoccupied with arguing its case to a NASCAR official, failed to tell Kenseth to pit before NASCAR stopped scoring him. He wound up being black-flagged, which kept him from being scored on one lap, then lost another lap when he came in for his drive-through penalty.
When Gordon tied Earnhardt Sr.’s record of 76 wins, he flew a flag with Earnhardt Sr.’s No. 3 on it during his post-race celebration and was roundly booed by fans in Phoenix. You know I think when you look if Jamie’s career you look at.
Despite the lack of stoppages (or, perhaps more accurately, because of them), the opening stints of what is now the season’s lone Sprint Cup Series race at the Atlanta Motor Speedway were some of the most interesting racing on a 1.5 mile track the series has seen in years.
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Fittingly, Earnhardt Jr. finished second. He finished 19th. FILLING IN FOR SMOKE:Ty Dillon had a nondescript day while subbing for injured Tony Stewart in the No. 14 auto. The Atlanta race was the first of the season featuring NASCAR’s lower downforce aerodynamic package….
