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Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of fuel in the closing laps of Sunday’s Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, leaving the Hendrick Motorsports driver with a 25^th-place finish, teetering on the edge of elimination from the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

The two-time 2015 winner holds a one-point lead over 13^th-place Kyle Busch heading into the weekend’s AAA 400 race at Dover International Speedway, the site of the final event of the Chase-opening Challenger Round.

With the threat of yet another earlier-than-predicted Chase exit looming over the No. 88 team, Earnhardt discussed the New Hampshire race, the upcoming event at the “Monster Mile” and whether he’s mad at his crew chief, Greg Ives, for miscalculating his fuel level on the weekly Dirty Mo Podcast.   

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“I guess we’ll get right to it — we ran out of gas. I really didn’t know we were short on fuel but we ended up running out and I know the 4 and the 41 ran out of gas also,” Earnhardt said. “It sucks, you know? It sucks that things ended up that way. To be honest with you, I’m not mad at Greg. I’m not mad at anybody. If you’re going to race for 20 years, you’re going to have days like this. You’re going to have races like that and you’re going to have miscalculations.

“In this sport, races are won and lost and positions are gained and lost and speed is gained by just fractions of an inch and very small measurements. You push everything from how the car’s made and goes through tech to the fuel mileage; you push everything to the very breaking point. And you’ve got to gamble and be aggressive. Sometimes those gambles are going to pay off and sometimes they’re not. You’re going to have these kind of things happen and that’s just the way it is.”

To hear Junior talk about the situation Sunday – while he was walking through the woods, relaxed and about to go sit in a hunting stand, no less – with such poise and calmness was interesting. The 40-year-old has gone through long stretches of less successful times in which he tended to pin the blame on those around him.

In a situation that tends to typically be blamed on crew chief error, Earnhardt chose not to bury Ives, something he admitted he may have done in the past.

“If it happened to me 10 years ago, I’d be complaining like a spoiled brat. I’d be throwing everybody under the bus. I don’t feel like that today,” said Earnhardt, who finished outside the top 10 at NHMS for the first time since 2013. “I think Greg is a huge influence on our performance and he wants to take responsibility for what happened. I don’t want him to do that. We make decisions together. He’s not the only guy up on that pit box. We make these decisions together, but he’s feeling pretty bad about what happened. But he’s going to pick himself up and go on down the road to Dover and try to do what we have to do. I’m not mad at him. He is a huge reason why our performance is better this year.”

In fact, the performance that Ives has brought to the table in 2015 is immeasurable. Even with Sunday’s middling result, Earnhardt is on pace for the best average finish of his career – 10.8 – and should be a legitimate contender for his first title, if he advances past Dover.

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Performance could’ve fallen off dramatically when long-time crew chief Steve Letarte stepped down from the 88 pit box to jump into the NBCSN booth, but it hasn’t. It’s actually improved.

It’s not a coincidence.

“I’m competing and performing and running on a consistent basis more than I ever have. I’m proud of the year we’ve had. When you make a change and you change such a powerful player on the team like the crew chief position or the driver position or the lead engineer, it’s going to have an effect,” Earnhardt said. “What you want it to be is seamless and you want to always improve that position. If you change the driver, you want a better driver. If you change the crew chief, you want a better crew chief. You don’t want to move laterally or regress.  

“I told Steve Letarte this when he was going away. I said, ‘I’m going to shoot you straight. You’ve got to help me find a better person than what you are. You’ve got to help me fill this void. You’ve got to let me know what you think about the guy coming in. He’s got to be as good or better.’ I feel like we’ve done that. I know that Greg’s going to learn and go through these growing pains and he’s going to be a star. He’s going to be a superstar in this sport. He’ll learn from today. He’ll put this in the notes and he’ll never make that mistake again and we’ll never make it together.”

Now, the series shifts to Dover, a difficult track that Earnhardt hasn’t seen Victory Lane at since his mid-20s. In 2013, he started on the pole and finished second in this race – a result that would likely keep him in the Chase.

One big problem is the 4 car of Kevin Harvick, which Earnhardt admits has ‘been faster than everybody every week’ and sits behind him in the standings. Harvick is among the favorites to win the race, which could have dire implications for the 88.

“We feel like we’ve got a good enough team to go to Dover and do what we’ve got to do and make it to the next round, so let’s go do that,” said Earnhardt. “Put (New Hampshire) in the rearview mirror, folks, nothing you can do about it now.

“Just go on back to work and get our (expletive) done.”