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Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s team was penalized for having too many men over the wall during a round of green flag pit stops on Lap 121 of Sunday’s CampingWorld.com 500, and it was a factor in keeping the Hendrick Motorsports driver from advancing in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup
Earnhardt needed to come back to pit road to serve a pass-through penalty to put him at the tail end of the lead lap.
“Don’t panic; things will work out,” Earnhardt told his team over his radio. “Shake it off. You’ve been doing great all day.”
They almost did work out, as Earnhardt found himself back in the lead with 30 laps to go, then lined up side-by-side with race-winner Joey Logano on the final, green-white-checkered restart before a wreck behind him forced the No. 88 to a second-place finish.
The HMS driver needed to win the race to advance, and thus has been eliminated from the Chase.
Junior led a race-high 61 laps.