DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- For a while in Saturday night's Daytona 400, it looked like the Hendrick Motorsports team everyone feared coming into this season finally showed up.
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| Jimmie Johnson's No. 48 car takes heavy damage in a late crash. (US Presswire) |
But one-by-one, the team's fortunes blew up like a Fourth of July firecracker.
Johnson got caught up in one of the many late race crashes the punctuated the closing laps.
Earnhardt fell back in the pack and, just like last February's Daytona 500, faded down the stretch with suddenly no one to draft with.
And Gordon, who was ahead as the race wound down until eventual winner Kyle Busch passed him with four laps to go, got punted out of the second spot on the final restart by Carl Edwards and ended his night sitting on the infield apron.
So for those of you keeping score at home, the night ended with Earnhardt finishing eighth, Johnson 23rd and Gordon 30th. Oh, and just for good measure, lame duck fourth teammate Casey Mears finished 34th.
"Everybody was laying back and trying to get a run on the last restart," Gordon said. "They got the jump on me. I tried to block him. Maybe I came across (Edwards') nose. Hard to say. It's unfortunate. We had such a strong run."
Unfortunately, once again Gordon has nothing to show for it and was upset with himself for allowing Busch to get by for the lead in the first place.
"I should have stayed on the bottom. My car was so good on the bottom," he said. "I'm probably more mad at myself than anything else. You know on a green/white/checkered it's always going to get crazy in the end. We were going for the win and trying to get in the momentum and the 99 got a run, and I went low to block him and he kept going low and I guess I must have come across his front bumper. I don't know what happened." Earnhardt was trying for his second win of the season and had a strong car all weekend. But just like the Daytona 500, when it came down to crunch time, he was left high and dry.
"Yeah, those last several laps it was rough out there," Earnhardt said. "And we tried to do the best we could. Jeff (Gordon) got a great run on me and went to the outside and got the lead doing what he can to win the race. That's what you got to do. I hate feeling obligated to my teammates too, so I don't blame him. He had a good enough run to where I don't blame him for going for that. But it shuffled us back a little bit and we tried to work our way back up to the front and we got back into third a couple of times."
With all the late race dicing, Earnhardt found himself alone and without a drafting friend in sight.
"It wasn't nothing to do with friends," Earnhardt said. "I didn't want to be near anybody that was driving. It was crazy. They were running into each other and wrecking and carrying on and Clint (Bowyer) hits the wall and I think all that happened after the finish line. Dang! I still thought it was one to go, or something. If I'd of known it was the last lap, my mind would have been better prepared for what I saw. It was crazy."
The wild finish wasn't the first time this season Earnhardt hasn't been able to seal the deal while being in position to win. But even though he was able to move up to second in the Sprint Cup Series points standings, he hopes the closing lap fadeout of Saturday night will be his last.
"We've got to better capitalize on these types of wins at these types of races than we have been," he said. "I haven't done what I think I should be able to do on plate tracks."
"I've been given great equipment and I've just been not making the right decisions at the end. I need to change my mentality or something going into those last 20 laps or something, and just have a little luck."
That's something all of Hendrick Motorsports would like to have as well.
