RELATED: Full race results
BRISTOL, Tenn. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. spotted the field two laps and then nearly won the race Sunday.
Well, maybe not won. But he did spot the field two laps, thanks to an unspecified electrical issue. And he did run as high as second with only five of the 500 laps remaining in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
But it would have taken quite a turn of events for the Hendrick Motorsports driver to overtake leader and eventual race winner Carl Edwards.
Not that he and crew chief Greg Ives didn’t try. Instead, Earnhardt wound up with his second consecutive second-place finish and his third of the season.
Earnhardt said it was an issue with the braking system that caused the engine to shut off practically at the drop of the green flag. With no power, his No. 88 Chevrolet was nearly run over from behind by the No. 43 of Aric Almirola (Richard Petty Motorsports), which in turn was nearly run over by the No. 23 of David Ragan.
“If your throttle is stuck and you mash the brake to a certain (pressure) — you’re going to mash the (expletive) out of that brake when the throttle sticks; it’ll shut the motor off. That’s a system; that’s one of the two systems that you have to choose from in this sport.
“The other is a button on the steering wheel. I don’t like the button on the steering wheel because when the throttle sticks, I ain’t going to think, ‘Mash a button.’ I’ll be in the fence before it’s over with.”
Ives said officials were still evaluating the situation after the race. “It looks like the engine might have just went into protection mode,” he said. “They’re still diagnosing it … we’re just double-checking everything before we claim (that) was the real issue.”
Once the problem was corrected, if not entirely solved, Earnhardt Jr. began the long, arduous task of racing his way back into contention on a speedy half-mile where passing options are limited and mistakes are often costly.
He gained one of the lost laps by taking the wave-around during the first of 15 caution periods during the race. When the yellow flag appeared a third time at Lap 116, he once again remained on the track and was back on the lead lap when green-flag racing resumed.
Late restarts were beneficial since for nearly each one, Earnhardt restarted in the preferred outside row. A position or two here, a position or two there and suddenly, with five laps remaining, he shot from fourth to second. A misstep by Edwards and the No. 88 team would have been in Victory Lane.
But Edwards didn’t waver and both Earnhardt and Ives knew they didn’t have the best car.
“We had a really good car last week, a top‑three car,” Earnhardt said. “This car wasn’t that good, but we kind of understand why. We’re going outside the box as far as what we typically run here for setup.
“And that’s good. The setup didn’t quite work but you still had a good day and you can go home and learn and try to science it out and make that setup work.”
Ives agreed. The car was good enough, he said, to allow his driver to make passes and “do what he needed to do.”
“But I don’t think we had a second-place car or a top-10 car,” the crew chief said. “I felt like we were probably 12th to 15th at best with the race car. Just Dale working the traffic and doing what he needed to do got us in position there at the end. That really allowed us to get a second-place finish, but I definitely need to bring better cars.
“Obviously we want to run well and win races, but if you just keep on bringing the same stuff year in year out you’re not going to learn anything.”
Earnhardt hasn’t won since last fall’s Phoenix race, however he and the team have five top-10s in the season’s first eight races. As a result, he sits sixth in points and is poised to head back to the Chase for the Sprint Cup at the end of this season. Not that he’s taking anything for granted.
“Going to Victory Lane is important to our sponsors and it’s obviously fun,” he said. “But it’s good for our team to set ourselves up to not have to worry about the Chase anymore.
“Even though you know you’re a top‑five team or top‑10 team that should make the Chase without any issue, you can’t help but count them points to 16th or 17th each week.”