The inevitable finally happened. Dale Earnhardt Jr. rolled his sputtering Amp Energy Chevrolet across the finish line at the LifeLock 400 to end a 76 race drought, stifling the critics and satisfying his fans.

Continuing the trend of Earnhardt’s last three Sprint Cup victories, strategy was key to winning the race.  It was tactical tire strategy at Chicagoland in 2005 and Richmond in 2006, but a no stop strategy by crew chief Tony Eury Jr. propelled Earnhardt to his first points win with Hendrick Motorsports. 

“I’ve got to hand it to Tony Jr for being a risk taker.  He’s worked this year to get us good finishes – better finishes than we would have had,” Earnhardt said. 

Earnahrdt’s car was far from dominant throughout the race.  The no. 88 team struggled with a loose condition early in the run, and was forced to regain lost time as the car’s handling came back into focus near the end of a stint. 

As the laps wound down, teams filed onto pit road to sacrifice track position for fuel under green.  Jamie McMurray, Kasey Kahne and Earnhardt showed as the only three to stretch their fuel mileage and go the distance from the last yellow on lap 152. 

The three didn’t cooperate to save gas, but instead swapped positions and raced side by side for the lead while squeezing every last bit of Sunoco race fuel out of their tanks.  It was a spin on lap 198 by former leader Sam Hornish Jr. that set up a green-white-checkered finish and looked to spoil plans for a fuel mileage win. 

Earnhardt dropped to the apron, repeatedly shutting off his engine under pace laps to conserve gas.  His efforts were not in vain.  Earnhardt shot out to a sizeable lead on the restart and did not look back until a collision on the front stretch between Michael Waltrip and Patrick Carpantier ended the race under caution. 

Cheers could be heard over race engines as the stands erupted into a green and blue cheering frenzy.  The no. 88 team had come so close so many time this year, already recording six top five finishes. 

“Looking at finishes just on a sheet of paper, you never really see the truth of how good a team is,” Earnhardt said.  “I’m really happy about how we ran today.” 

One thing that does show on a sheet of paper is the level at which Brian Vickers and Team Red Bull have been performing as of late.  After finishing a team best second last week at Pocono, Vickers raced from 18^th starting spot to the lead in 34 laps.  Vickers went on to finish fourth. 

For much of the day, Matt Kenseth seemed to have the car to beat.  A two tire call late in the race confused a pit road official who was standing in front of Kenseth’s car as he pulled out.  Kenseth slowed as to not topple the official and lost valuable spots on pit road.  No positions were returned to the no. 17 team. 

“We just kind of got beat on the pit deal.  That cost us two spots leaving the pits and that really hurt us,” Kenseth said.  “We were just not really in the right place to capitalize on it [strategy].” 

Points leader Kyle Busch never found the handle on his no. 18 Toyota.  Another disappointing weekend of three races in three series left Busch with a mediocre 13^th place finish.  Second in points Jeff Burton finished two spots behind Busch in 15^th. 

Earnhardt has now pulled within 100 points of Busch, back 84.  Busch stretched his points lead on Burton to 32.  The Sprint Cup series hits the lefts and rights of the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma California next week.

You can contact Jonathan at jlintner@gmail.com

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