Dale Earnhardt, Jr. celebrates in victory lane after scoring his second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win of the season in Sunday afternoon’s Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway. Photo by NASCAR Via Getty Images
LONG POND, PA – Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was in position to pounce on Sunday, punching his ticket to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup by winning his second race this season and his first-ever at Pocono Raceway.
It took a little racing luck.
Runner-up Brad Keselowski was terrific in clean air. What he lacked was a clean grille.
On Sunday, when Keselowski’s car began to overheat due to a piece of trash on his front end, Earnhardt roared by, becoming the fourth consecutive Hendrick Motorsports driver to put a Chevrolet in victory lane at Pocono Raceway.
“Brad had the better car; he had me beat,” said Earnhardt, who has known his share of late-race misfortune. Take the third race of the season at Las Vegas, when he ran out of gas on the final lap, enabling Keselowski to win.
“I’ve lost some in some strange ways, so it feels good to win one like that,” Earnhardt said.
Earnhardt’s triumph in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ Pocono 400 gave him two victories this season, his first multiple-win campaign since 2004 when he won six times. He has seen and appreciated the gradual-but-steady strides his team has made.
“The difference between running fourth at the end of this race and running second is a very small thing,” said Earnhardt, praising the effort of his crew chief Steve Letarte in the process. “In years past, it was someone else seizing the opportunity. We’d be third or fourth, watching it happen.
“Each year we’ve seen a progression of performance. What I’m seeing us do and how I’m seeing us run makes a lot of sense to me. We’ve been fast every week. We started (to improve) toward the middle of last year. We haven’t peaked, but we’re certainly doing some of our best work right now.”
Keselowski led 95 of Sunday’s 160 laps and led Earnhardt by more than one second when his engine temperature forced him to take decisive action with five laps to go. Keselowski tucked in behind the lapped car of Danica Patrick, hoping to draw the debris off his grille.
“I felt really bad for Brad to see him in a situation to be that desperate,” Earnhardt said. “He’s a good friend … he had it won. We weren’t going to get to him. I could not believe he was going to do that when I saw him go up the race track behind the No. 10 (Patrick’s car). His temperature had to be super-hot for him to do that.”
Keselowski said he was desperate and felt he had no choice.
“There was debris on the grille, so I had to do something,” Keselowski said. “(Maybe) I should have just ran it to see if it would have blown off … but I had to make some kind of move or the car wasn’t going to make it. The car was starting to blow up. It was going to break or I was going to get passed because we were really down on power in the straightaway.
“I took a shot to clear it off and not lose time, but I misjudged it. (The move) made enough difference for me to lose the lead in the process. When I got down in the corner and the car finally got sideways, I realized I’d made a mistake.”
In 28 previous Sprint Cup starts at Pocono, Earnhardt had managed seven top-five finishes including a pair of second-place finishes despite what he thought were some excellent cars.
“We’ve had so many opportunities slip away,” he said. “We’ve been so close. So it feels so good to get into victory lane here. I used to come here as a kid because it was a summer race. I just always wanted to win at this place. We’ve had some good cars here, so it feels good to finish the deal.”
Kurt Busch finished third, polesitter Denny Hamlin fourth and rookie Kyle Larson took fifth. Hendrick driver Jimmie Johnson, winner of the previous two Sprint Cup races, started 20th, overcame a pit road collision with Marcos Ambrose that dropped him as far back as 31st, and wound up sixth.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Pocono Raceway – Long Pond, PA
Pocono 400 – June 8, 2014
1. Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
2. Brad Keselowski
3. Kurt Busch
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6. Jimmie Johnson
7. Ryan Newman
8. Jeff Gordon
9. Martin Truex, Jr.
10. Jamie McMurray
11. Clint Bowyer
12. Kyle Busch
13. Tony Stewart
14. Kevin Harvick
15. Ricky Stenhouse, Jr.
16. Greg Biffle
17. Austin Dillon
18. David Ragan
19. Brian Vickers
20. Michael Annett
21. A.J. Allmendinger
22. Aric Almirola
23. Casey Mears
24. Marcos Ambrose
25. Matt Kenseth
26. Paul Menard
27. Justin Allgaier
28. David Gilliland
29. Travis Kvapil
30. Cole Whitt
31. Alex Bowman
32. Ryan Truex
33. Landon Cassill
34. Reed Sorenson
35. Josh Wise
36. Timmy Hill
37. Danica Patrick
38. J.J. Yeley
39. Alex Kennedy
40. Joey Logano
41. Carl Edwards
42. Kasey Kahne
43. Dave Blaney
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