WHAT JUST HAPPENED: Busch was in position for a runner-up finish to Joey Logano with three laps remaining in the Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway when Logano ran out of fuel — putting Busch in position to win his fourth consecutive race and fifth in his last six. Only problem? "Rowdy" was on the same fuel strategy as Logano, and ran out of fuel shortly later himself. Had he finished second or won the race, he’d have been inside the top 30 in points. Instead, his 21st-place finish only netted him 24 points.

WHAT HE NEEDS: With four wins this season, Busch still needs to finish in the top 30 in the standings and be able to start the remaining regular-season races to be eligible for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. With five races to go before Chicagoland, Busch is unofficially 13 points behind David Gilliland, who is in 30th place. Busch needs to average 18.4 points per race, which comes out to an average finish of 25th in the remainder.



WHAT’S NEXT: The Sprint Cup Series heads to Watkins Glen International for the Cheez-It 355 at 2 p.m. ET on Aug. 9 (NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM). Busch has two career wins at The Glen, but finished 40th in last year’s running of the event. It was just the second time in his career that he’s finished worse than ninth at the road course. His average finish of 11.3 there ranks fifth among all current tracks for Busch.

"Just had more fuel than everybody else," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We had a lot of trouble today."

By Lap 40, the No. 88 car moved up to third from 15th at the start as pit strategies played out. But when he came to pit road 13 laps later, Earnhardt Jr. was caught speeding entering pit road.

"Tach wasn’t working right so we got caught speeding on pit road," Earnhardt Jr. said. "That was kind of my fault because we have a backup plan, and I didn’t use it very well I guess. We got behind, and never could really get our track position back."

Falling to 25th by Lap 70, Earnhardt was caught between Cole Whitt low and Casey Mears high in Turn 1 on Lap 72, bringing out the seventh caution of the race.

"I must have come down on Cole Whitt down there into Turn 1," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I didn’t think I had anybody underneath me. I was just kind of taking it easy getting down into the corner off the gas and waiting on everybody to sort it out. I must have come down on him. We got a little damage there. We fixed that. Got back out there."

By Lap 80, Earnhardt Jr. had fallen back to 36th place after fighting a vibration that neither he nor crew chief Greg Ives could diagnose. 

"We had a lot of vibrations for some reason, not the driveline vibrations, kind of like a bad tire or something," Earnhardt Jr. said. "The right front shook real bad on one set, and the right rear shook bad. 

"We ran good lap times throughout the day. We got in front of the leader there one time and was running some good laps until we had a real bad vibration kick in and turn sideways down there."

After seven cautions in the first half of the race, only one caution came out in the second 80 laps, and the No. 88 team was able to climb into the top 20 by Lap 140.

Host of the popular "Back In the Day" show on SPEED Channel, Earnhardt Jr. was surprised that NASCAR waved no yellows in the final 63 laps and threw in a throwback Sunday reference to the year before his birth.

"The booth up there, they turned the clock back to 1973 and let that thing play out a little bit, let everybody run out of gas," Earnhardt Jr. said. "That was pretty cool, kind of like some of the older races where you just can’t count on them to throw the cautions at the end. They didn’t today."

Sitting 17th at Lap 150, several cars ran out of Sunoco Green E15 in the final 10 laps, and Earnhardt Jr. was able to earn his third top-five finish in the last five races. He was joined in the top six by fellow Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jeff Gordon in third and Jimmie Johnson in sixth. 

On Friday, Earnhardt Jr. said Hendrick Motorsports may not be "on top of the mountain any more," and since his win at Daytona, the team has only led four laps over the past four races, including two on Sunday by Gordon.

As Joe Gibbs Racing continues its recent dominance with its fourth consecutive victory and 353 laps led in that stretch, Earnhardt Jr. was optimistic that his team may have turned the corner.

"Really enjoyed the power we had today," Earnhardt Jr. "We had great motors. I could tell down the straightaway it was as good anybody or better. 

"We just got to work on our car. Our car wasn’t very good all weekend in the corner. We had a lot of balance issues we never really cured so that held us up. We weren’t as good as we were earlier this year. 

"Still a top-10, top-five car, but just barely a top-five car. I thought we had a good enough car to win here when we come here in the summer earlier, but we lost a little on the balance."

"Coming off of Turn 2, I knew I had some issues and didn’t realize they were going to be that big, but all in all, just really proud of my team," Harvick said. "Car was fast. You’ll have days like this."

The reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion is winless at Pocono, one of only five tracks on the circuit where he hasn’t gone to Victory Lane. He’s also without a win at Dover, Kentucky, Sonoma and Texas.

Sitting atop the points standings with two wins on the season, Harvick clinched a Chase berth three races ago at Kentucky Speedway in his attempt to defend his title this fall.

Hendrick Motorsports supplies engines to SHR, and Harvick was asked whether his team was working on something special for the Chase.

"I have no idea," Harvick said. "That would be a great question for the engine shop, but I don’t think that’s the case."

The 42nd-place finish was Harvick’s worst since last spring at Texas.

As teams and as drivers, when you have a smooth race track, you can kind of set your car up for optimum (performance). Your tolerances are different. You’re able to run your car a little bit stiffer, a little bit lower and do all the things that — on paper — show that the car will go faster. 

Unfortunately, faster doesn’t always equate to passing so I think Turn 2 is going to be a little bit of a challenge in the race (Windows 10 400, Sunday, 1:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM). 

Typically in the past, (Turns) 1 and 3 have been the passing zones, and (Turn) 2 has been ‘Who can be the bravest?’ I think we’re going to go back to that. We’ve had great races up here both ways. 

I’m not going to complain. It definitely makes it very unique getting through the Tunnel Turn right now because it’s smooth enough now that you’re kind of at the edge of grip of can you make the corner at the speed you’re trying to carry. Whereas with the bumps, you at least knew that you had to slow down for the bumps so that’s going to be interesting to see how it plays out in the race.

Consistent conditions from June to August

Typically when we come back here, it’s a little bit hotter during the day. The track has had all summer of the sun beating down on it so it’s typically a little bit slicker when we come back here. 

That’s kind of the one thing that’s very unique about this race track. It doesn’t seem to change a lot. It seems to say pretty consistent. Other than the bumps in the Tunnel Turn, we really hadn’t had anything to talk about.

Three turns race like six

Obviously it’s only three corners, but I think it’s six. I turn in and turn off so I always call them extra corners.

On the start and restarts, you’re coming through Turn 1 six-wide pretty easily. Then you get to the turn and there’s really only about two lanes that I would say are ideal. 

Off of Turn 1, you can kind of fan out again, and then when you get down to the Tunnel Turn, you run right down on the yellow line on the apron as the ideal line so you need to go from three or four-wide to one lane.

Then when you get to Turn 3, it’s not uncommon to be two or three-wide. Coming off of Turn 3, the speeds are pretty incredible. Depending on what transmission ratios you have, you’re shifting a couple times a lap. You’re either shifting in all three corners or just 1 and 3 so you have to be kind of careful who you’re racing against and what transmissions they’ve got. 

2.5-mile short track?

You must make sure that you save your brakes all the way until the end of the race. You can over-cook the brakes here pretty easily. You run a smaller brake package because it is a big race track, but at the same time, you’re almost using it more than you are at a short track. 

Indy-Pocono package

When you look down the front straightaway here, it seems like forever and what’s weird to me though versus Indy is the fact that Turn 1 is so wide. If Turn 1 would have been what Turn 2 is, you could have said, ‘Yeah, it’s just like Indy.’ But a lot of the things that we worked on setup-wise — not necessarily last week with the different rules package — but a lot of the things that we work on setup-wise with Indy equate to Pocono and vice versa. Anything you learn at Pocono, you can kind of use at Indy, which makes it nice.