Junior finishes race in 5 car after Busch wrecks, leaves (cont'd)

The damage to Busch's car appeared much worse than that of Earnhardt's as he pulled directly to the garage.

"Don't even worry about it, load it up," Busch radioed to his team. But nobody listened. Busch took his car to the garage, got out and disappeared while the crew went to work immediately on what looked to be an unfixable car.

Meanwhile, Earnhardt's crew worked on his machine during the caution and kept their driver on the lead lap before finally retiring to the garage on Lap 301.

"We struggled a little bit after the wreck," Earnhardt said once he climbed from his car. "We thought we could get the car back out there and run good, but there were some issues with the handling and finally the motor broke.

"Normally when you tear a car up and spin around, you can throw the motor backward and do some damage there but that's not what happened. We just haven't had any luck and one of these days it'll be our day and we'll be able to celebrate."

Eight laps later, the No. 5 crew had put all the pieces together to get the car back on track. All but one.

"We ain't got no driver," a crewman said over the radio.

Team members from the No. 5 searched for Busch but never found him. That's when jackman Rick Pigeon approached his buddy Earnhardt and asked if he would finish the race in the 5 car. Earnhardt asked crew chief Tony Eury Jr. about the situation. Eury gave the go-ahead, and Earnhardt got in the car to finish the final nine laps of the race.

"Pig [Pigeon] is my buddy, and I have a couple other friends on this team," Earnhardt said. "They asked me to do it so I wasn't going to say no."

When Earnhardt crossed the finish line, he thanked his newly adopted crew.

"I could tell that it was a real nice car before we had the accident," Earnhardt said. "I really appreciate them asking me. I was honored. It means a lot to me."

By finishing the race in Busch's car, Earnhardt was able to pass Jimmie Johnson in the finishing order as the 5 car completed two more laps than the 48. The 37th-place finish gave Busch three more points in the race's final tally, although Busch fell two positions to seventh in the standings.

The upside for Earnhardt is that he wound up one spot ahead of Busch in the finishing order. The downside: he dropped seven spots in the standings from 11th to 18th, the farthest-falling driver.

"It was a miscommunication between the team and Kyle," said Busch's crew chief, Alan Gustafson. "He thought they weren't going to go back out so he left. There were a few laps left, they knew they could gain a position and gain three valuable points.

"So they asked Dale Jr. to fill in. Junior didn't hesitate and agreed and it was a very sportsmanlike gesture and it says a lot about Dale Jr. and the kind of person he is."

But finishes and points weren't on Earnhardt's mind when he decided to help out a team that had worked hard to get their car in running condition.

By the time he pulled into the garage after the race, an audience had gathered at the 5 car's garage waiting on its newly christened part-time driver at Texas.

"It don't matter, I was glad to do it," Earnhardt said to eager onlookers, noting that he didn't hesitate to help out the Hendrick team. But he ended any thought that this may be a precursor for future changes. "Are you crazy?"