RELATED: Race results | Updated standings

A pair of pit-road fake-outs went horribly wrong for Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson during the eighth caution period of Sunday’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, spoiling the day for two drivers firmly running in the top five.
 
Busch, a Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs contender, feinted toward pit road after the yellow flag emerged for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s third wall scrape of the day. When Busch tried to return to the race track to keep his third position, he bumped into second-place Larson, who was making his own lean toward pit road.
 
The contact sent both Larson’s No. 42 Chevrolet spinning at the pit entrance, with Busch’s No. 18 Toyota skidding and clipping into the commitment cone.
 
“What the (expletive) is he thinking?” Busch told his Joe Gibbs Racing crew over the radio. “He’s never going to make the (expletive) commitment cone anyway.”
 
Larson later told his Chip Ganassi Racing crew over the radio: “I’m sure it doesn’t matter, but please apologize as much as you can.”

After making multiple stops for repairs, Busch resumed the race in 23rd place with Larson 24th as the last two cars on the lead lap. Busch fared only slightly better after the contact, finishing 20th to Larson’s 21st — both a lap down.

“I don’t know. Just can’t say enough about my guys — all the work that they put into these things,” Busch said. “They don’t deserve to be put in these situations year in, year out, but we are for some reason. But it’s tough and we’re going to have to battle through with what we’ve got right now. I can’t say enough about what they did on pit road getting us back salvageable.”

Busch might’ve demurred when asked about the contact with Larson, but Adam Stevens, his crew chief, was more demonstrative, saying his plan all along was to keep his driver on the race track.

“(Busch) knew the call the whole time, he was just doing what he normally does,” Stevens said. “The big question is what was the 42 (Larson) doing. There was no way, whether we were there or not, he turned down so late that he was going to hit the cone — he was going to completely miss the cone on the right or maybe touch it with his left side somewhere, there was no way he was going to get under the cone. I don’t know what he was doing, but you’ll have that sometimes. I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.”

 

Larson reiterated his apology post-race.

“They told me to do what everybody around me was doing and the No. 22 (leader and eventual race winner Joey Logano) was staying out, so I was committed to staying out,” Larson said, “and as soon as I turned right to stay out they said pit, pit, pit. I hung a left and Kyle was there. I feel really terrible to ruin their day and hopefully it didn’t hurt their chances of transferring through this round. I know they deserve a top-three finish for sure. I felt awful immediately and still do. I hate it.”

RELATED: Junior turns 41; see images through the years
MORE: Race results | Updated standings

 

CONCORD, N.C. — History repeated itself for Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Contender Round opener of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

 

The opening race of this round may have been at a different track this year, (Charlotte Motor Speedway as opposed to 2014’s Kansas Speedway) but the end result, a 28th-place finish in the Bank of America 500, left Earnhardt looking up at 10 drivers in the standings when the afternoon was complete — the same standings position he was in after a 39th-place finish at Kansas last year in the opening race of this round in 2014.

 

The driver of the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet summed up his day pretty succinctly.

 

“Yeah, I lost count of how many time we hit it (the wall) today,” Earnhardt said on pit road after the race.

 

Earnhardt’s trouble began on Lap 69 when he made contact with the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota of Carl Edwards. At the time, Junior was running ninth.

 

“Carl got a great run on us and drove down into 1 and got into the back of us a little bit. I don’t know if I cut him off or not. He drove in there pretty hard and ran over the left-rear quarter panel of the car and (I) got in the fence.”

 

Edwards, who went on to score a sixth-place finish, explained his end of things.

 

“It stinks he ended up hitting the wall,” Edwards said. “I felt like he blocked me real hard the first time and so the second time I got up there when he came down I just held my ground and we got together. He did an amazing job saving it and I have a ton of respect for him so it stinks that it ruined his day. I have to hold my ground when I’ve got my nose in there. Like I said, it stinks that it ruined their day.”

 

Earnhardt, a two-time winner this year, eventually got into the wall again a few laps later on Lap 75 to bring out the fourth caution of the race. His team went to work on the right side of his car and the crush panel. From there, Earnhardt worked hard to get in position for the free pass and had managed to climb to one lap down.

 

However, just after the Lap 190 restart, he found the wall once again due to what Earnhardt said was oil on the track — something several other drivers echoed during the race.

RELATED: Find out who else questioned the clean-up efforts

 

“There was oil down there. It wasn’t speedy dry. I’ve raced this (expletive) for 20 years, I know what oil and speedy dry is. We hit fluid, flew into the freaking wall hard. That’s not speedy dry. There was oil up there.”

 

He later added, “I hit the (expletive) wall. I know I hit oil. I hit it. I promise.”

 

Now, Earnhardt turns his attention to making up ground at Kansas and Talladega Superspeedway, the final two races of the Chase’s Contender Round, the same three-race series that eliminated Earnhardt last year. Both of Earnhardt’s 2015 wins have come at restrictor-plate tracks, including a May win at Talladega.

 

“It ain’t over. Don’t worry about that,” Earnhardt said. “I mean, we don’t have to go to Talladega and be nervous like those guys that are going to have to play it safe. We can just go hard. So, we’ve got a great car that can win that race. We can go to Kansas and run great. I like that track and don’t see why we can’t run great there and maybe win the race there. It ain’t over.”

 

Earnhardt raced his way into this round thanks to a third-place result at Dover International Speedway in the Challenger Round finale, holding off Jamie McMurray for the final transfer spot. So he is familiar with the ground he has to cover.

 

“We were in this situation in the first round. We can be aggressive, go to Kansas, run hard. When we’re in the top 10, just inside the bubble, you might not run the high side so hard, so aggressive. You might not drive the whole race as aggressive.

 

“At Kansas, you can run the top and I like running the top there. I think we can be fast up there and I ain’t got to worry about skinning the side of it, knocking us out of the Chase. We’re out of it. It’s our turn to fall back in and we’ll try.”

 

And while other drivers earlier in the week indicated they were not looking forward to a Talladega race with their Chase position on the line, the six-time winner at the 2.66-mile Alabama track said he feels the exact opposite.

 

“I’m looking forward to Talladega even more now.”

RELATED: Live weather updates from Charlotte | See the starting lineup

CONCORD, N.C. — Saturday night’s scheduled NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Bank of America 500, has been postponed due to rain.

Originally scheduled for a 7:16 p.m. ET start on Saturday, the race will now go green at 12:30 p.m. ET on Sunday afternoon. NBCSN will televise the 334-lap race, with radio coverage on PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio — NBCSN, PRN and SiriusXM will go live with pre-race coverage at noon ET.

The race at Charlotte is the first event of the three-race Contender Round in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Prior to this race, six races had a weather delay of some kind during the 2015 Sprint Cup Series season: The Atlanta race in March, the Bristol race in April, the Richmond race in April, the Kansas race in May, the Michigan race in June and the summer race at Daytona.

Only the Richmond race was postponed from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon, while the Michigan race was shortened by rain.

Matt Kenseth won the Coors Light Pole Award at Charlotte and will start out front. Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch joins him on the front row.

Kevin Harvick, who scored a win at Dover International Speedway last weekend to advance in the Chase, is the defending race winner at Charlotte.
 
Twelve drivers remain in play for the championship: Kenseth, Joey Logano , Denny Hamlin , Carl Edwards , Martin Truex Jr. , Kurt Busch, Jeff Gordon , Brad Keselowski , Kyle Busch, Ryan Newman , Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the defending series champion, Harvick.

Races at Kansas Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway are also part of the Contender Round.

RELATED: Race postponed due to rain | Sunday’s updated schedule