Race: Ford EcoBoost 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway
Track Specs: .5-mile oval / 300 Laps
Weather: Sunny, 70 degrees
Race Winner: Elliott Sadler
Dale Jr.’s Finish: 5^th

Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove the No. 5 TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet for to a fifth-place finish in NASCAR Nationwide Series action Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.  It was Earnhardt Jr.’s third consecutive top-five at Bristol dating back to Aug. 20, 2010.  It was also his first top-five in Nationwide Series competition in 2012.  In his only other race he finished 15^th at Daytona.

Starting 16^th, Earnhardt Jr. methodically climbed through the field, cracking the top-10 for the first time on lap 98.  He was in sixth when the third caution flew on lap 262, and a two-tire pit stop didn’t change his running position when the race restarted with 28 laps to go.  Earnhardt passed Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Justin Allgaier to climb to fourth, and then engaged in a fierce battle with hard-charging Joey Logano as the laps clicked down.  Logano made the pass, and Earnhardt Jr. drove the TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet to its first top-five of the season.

Elliott Sadler took the win, followed by Kasey Kahne and Brad Keselowski.  It was Sadler’s second win of the season.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. / Driver No. 5 Taxslayer.com Chevrolet
“It was a lot of fun driving this car this weekend.  There wasn’t too much craziness out there.  I was pleased with the speed the car had.  We were fast all weekend.  We took two tires on that last stop, and it was just a little too tight there at the end to really gain on the cars in front of us.  I had fun racing Joey (Logano) there at the end.  He was faster than we were, and I know he wanted to get up there and see if he had anything to Brad and Kasey in front of us.  It was the end of the race and I was fighting for everything I could get.  It was a good clean race (with Joey), and I had a lot of fun.

“I enjoy driving our JR Motorsports cars, and it’s a lot of fun to carry TaxSlayer.com.  They’re great sponsors of ours, and I want to win for them.  I guess this was about as uneventful a top-five as you can get, but it’s still good to finish well and bring all our JR Motorsports cars home in one piece.”