Dale Jr. raced inside the top 10 early, but a late debris caution forced him to recover lost spots in the closing laps. In the end, the No. 88 finished 14th at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Race: World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Track Specs: 1.5-mile quad-oval / 400 laps
Weather: Cloudy, 71 degrees
Race Winner: Martin Truex Jr.
Dale Jr.’s Finish: 14th
Sunday night’s 600-mile NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway saw Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 88 Nationwide team capture a 14th-place finish after falling a lap down late when a caution waved while the team was making their final pit stop.
The longest night of the season started off positively for Earnhardt as he rocketed forward from 25th to 17th before a competition caution at lap 26. The next stint allowed Earnhardt to move into the top 10 by lap 55 and up to seventh shortly after that. As he marched his way up the leaderboard, Earnhardt told crew chief Greg Ives that his Chevrolet was a little too loose and sliding the right-rear tire around the high banks of the fast 1.5-mile quad-oval.
The team utilized every trip to pit road to make adjustments to keep up with Earnhardt’s feedback. However, the combination of cooler-than-expected temperatures and a flurry of air pressure and chassis adjustments made the No. 88 too tight throughout the remainder of the event and the team’s continuous effort to improve the car’s rough ride quality weren’t quite enough to get Earnhardt back inside the top 10.
Late in the event, the race went through a lengthy 128-lap green-flag run which featured a pair of green-flag pit stops. When Earnhardt hit pit road on lap 338 for his third pit stop of that run, NASCAR waved the caution for debris on the track the very same lap. The unfortunate caution caught Earnhardt one-lap down to the leaders and dropped him to 17th for the ensuing restart with only 56 laps remaining. After taking the wave around to rejoin the lead lap, Earnhardt recovered three positions before taking the checkered flag 14th.
Martin Truex Jr. set a race-record by leading 392 of 400 laps on his way to his first win of the season. Kevin Harvick, Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top five.