Like a fine wine, Junior improves in final Sonoma race

RELATED: Race results | Full schedule for Daytona SONOMA, Calif. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. closed the book on his Sonoma Raceway career, from a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series standpoint, with a sixth-place finish and a somewhat different perspective of the winding 1.99-mile road course. "It's like the wine out here, I think you get better with age getting around this place," Earnhardt said out on pit road following Sunday's Toyota / Save Mart 350. It's no secret that Earnhardt, who will retire from full-time competition at the end of this 2017 season, has never quite taken to competing on the series' two road course tracks, Sonoma and Watkins Glen. But the popular driver has shown marked improvement at both venues in recent years. Sunday's result was his third top-10 in his last four starts at the 1.99-mile Sonoma facility. "I know all the drivers say this when they run good but I can't do it without a good car and I've had some great, great cars the last several trips here," Earnhardt said. "We stuck with what we know and it's working." Incidents early in the 110-lap race threatened to take the Hendrick Motorsports driver out of contention almost before it started. On Lap 15 he locked up the brakes on his No. 88 Chevrolet, slid into Turn 11 and was hit by Danica Patrick. WATCH: Junior's spin collects Danica Barely 15 or so laps later, he and Patrick (Stewart-Haas Racing Ford) again were involved in an incident, along with Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (Roush Fenway Racing Ford). "Wrong place, wrong time," was how Earnhardt described the initial incident. "Danica was trying to protect her position going into (Turn) 11 and I went in even lower than we normally go and … just locked up the rear tires," he said. "I hate that I hit the 42 (of Kyle Larson) and Danica there. "Then down in (Turn) 4 I don't think Danica knew that the 42 had gone to the inside and we just kind of all sandwiched together." WATCH: Stenhouse gets the worst of collision "After all that we settled in, ran our own race, Greg (Ives, crew chief) and the guys had good strategy and the car had real good speed," Earnhardt continued. Sunday's top-10 finish was just the third overall for Earnhardt in 18 starts at Sonoma. He led a total of nine laps here, all coming in 2004.