Dale Earnhardt Jr. comes up just short at Talladega, cannot avoid Chase elimination

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is adamant that, with a few hundred more feet, he would have won Sunday’s elimination race at Talladega Superspeedway to earn automatic advancement in the Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Except, before Earnhardt could get ahead of race-leader Joey Logano, a controversial caution for an accident triggered by Kevin Harvick caused officials to throw a caution and end the CampingWorld.com 500 under the yellow flag.

Earnhardt finished second and failed to advance out of the second round of NASCAR’s playoffs. A win would have assured he was one of the eight drivers to qualify for Round 3 and not one of four drivers eliminated Sunday.

“Per the rule book, it sorted out and I finished second,” Earnhardt said. “I’m okay with that. We could argue they could have waited another 100-foot to throw the caution, but they didn’t have to. They threw it when they needed to. I’m fine with that.”

Facing a virtual must-win situation at Talladega due to problems in the first two Round 2 races, Earnhardt put forth a determined drive leading an event-high 61 laps and controlled the race throughout.

But while Earnhardt was fast on the track, repeated issues on pit road continually costing him several positions.

A penalty for a crewmen stepping over the wall too soon caused Earnhardt to fall from the lead to 27th. And multiple times he skidded the tires on the No. 88 car getting onto pit road, which required the team to forgo fuel-only stops and change tires -- one such occurrence came on the day’s final stop saw a drop from first to 14th and necessitated a charge just to get back up front over the final 15 laps.

Eventually Earnhardt did recoup the lost track position and when a caution for Jamie McMurray’s smoking car setup a green-white-checkered restart finish, Earnhardt found himself in second to Logano. With a superior car, Earnhardt thought victory was inevitable -- especially because Logano elected to take the high lane on the restart conceding Earnhardt the lower groove.

“I couldn’t believe he gave me the bottom,” Earnhardt said. “I was like, ‘Man, this is a gift.’ I am going to win the race for sure.”

It wasn’t to be, though.

When Harvick bumped the rear of Trevor Bayne’s car causing him to spin and with drivers crashing at the end of the frontstretch, NASCAR had little recourse but to end the race under caution. Several drivers -- including Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth, who were also eliminated -- alleged Harvick intentionally wrecked Bayne to guarantee he transferred to the next playoff round.

Sunday marked the second straight year Earnhardt was cut from the Chase at Talladega. As Earnhardt stood next to his car on pit road, Jeff Gordon, Brad Keselowski and team owner Rick Hendrick offered words of encouragement about the latest elimination.

He took the setback in stride, preferring to focus on the positives.

“I just wanted to go out there, whatever happened, put forth a good account of myself, my team,” he said. “I’m real proud of what we did today. So I can feel good about that.”