NASCAR Talladega 2014: Dale Earnhardt Jr. eliminated from Chase for the Sprint Cup

A year for Dale Earnhardt Jr. that at times felt like something out of a storybook came to a premature end Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.

Needing a win to stave off elimination, Earnhardt crashed in the closing laps Sunday. A resulting 31st-place finish meant Earnhardt, along with Kyle Busch and teammates Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne, were all knocked out of the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

“The race is over, it’s time to go home,” Earnhardt said standing beside his car on pit road.

Earnhardt for much of the afternoon was in contention, running second to teammate Jimmie Johnson in the early stages. Near halfway Earnhardt passed Johnson for the lead and was out front for a total of 31 laps.

But Earnhardt’s race began to unravel when an attempt to pass failed and saw him get stuck in the middle groove. He never regained the lost track position.

“We worked real hard all day long trying to run up front,” Earnhardt said. “I knew we needed to be up front all day long. We got shuffled to the back.

“You know you’re not going to pass 10 or 12 cars there in six or seven laps. We tried. It just didn’t work out.”

A lack of track position was compounded when a late pit stop dropped Earnhardt further back in the pack. Unable to pass, Earnhardt eventually became entangled in a crash in the second green-white-checkered finish when Greg Biffle tapped the rear of Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet, sending him spinning through the Turn 3 grass.

“Got with the No. 16 (Biffle) a little bit,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t know if I came down on him or what. I thought I was holding my line, but we were all kind of tight back there.

“It’s just hard racing. That is the way it goes at the end of these races. We weren’t in a good position there in the back.”

In his final season working with crew chief Steve Letarte, Earnhardt won three races during the regular season including the Daytona 500. The two talked often how they wanted to win a championship together before Letarte, who will be an analyst for NBC Sports in 2015, departs.

That championship, however, will not materialize. Although his cars were fast in the second round, mechanical gremlins hampered Earnhardt at Kansas Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Despite the disappointing conclusion to an otherwise successful season, Earnhardt remained upbeat.

“There have probably been worse things,” said a laughing Earnhardt. “I’m not retiring or anything, so we’ll try next year. We’ve had a good season and have a lot to be looking forward to. We’re definitely not going to get too tore up about; we didn’t run well.”