Dale Earnhardt Jr. ended a 76-race winless streak on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway after he used fuel strategy to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series LifeLock 400.
Earnhardt, Jr. coasted across the finish to score his first points race victory since joining the Hendrick Motortsports team. It was his first trip to victory lane in a regular season Sprint Cup Series race since winning at Richmond in May of 2006.
The race was sent into overtime when Sam Hornish, Jr. spun to bring out caution.
Earnhardt, Jr. nursed his No. 88 Chevrolet during the caution laps as his fuel supply ran dangerously low.
On the final restart he was able to stay ahead of the field until Patrick Carpentier spun to bring out another caution and officially end the race.
"We were either going to have enough or we weren't," said Earnhardt Jr. "It stumbled coming to the white flag. We were going to stumble to the finish. But they can write what they want, but we won one."
"This is pretty meaningful because of Rick (Hendrick, team owner), he is such a great man," Earnhardt said. "I am glad to win for him and for Tony, Jr. for coming with me. Thankful for everyone at Hendrick believing in me, all my teammates and co-crew chiefs. All of these guys put so much in to this to help us. I just have to thank everybody, I just had a real good car.”
After winning the Budweiser Shootout and one of the Daytona qualifying races in February, Earnhardt, Jr. tried to follow with a first points win for new team owner Rick Hendrick.
It finally came after 15 tries.
"You know we started off and he won the Shootout and then the 150 and we said we don't have to worry about that winning a race now and then nobody counted it because it wasn't a points race," Earnhardt said. "We've been waiting for this so, it's so close."
Crew chief Eury Jr. celebrated the win with his cousin in victory lane.
"It doesn't get any sweeter than this," said Eury Jr. "This is awesome. That kid has been driving his heart out all out year and he deserves it."
Kasey Kahne continued his recent hot streak with a second place finish followed across the line by Matt Kenseth, Brian Vickers and Tony Stewart.
“I don’t know. I definitely feel like we’re getting better," said Kenseth. "I mean we had a string of miserable finishes there – a couple months ago, I think we had three or fourth that were 38th or worse or something, so things have definitely been in the upswing. We’ve been pretty good."
Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, David Ragan, Elliott Sadler and Jamie McMurray rounded out the first ten finishers.
The finish gave Roush Fenway Racing four drivers in the top ten and continued the team's success at MIS.
"It’s an all right job," said Edwards. "We’ve been working hard at a lot of things, but I thought Matt [Kenseth] was going to get it – I thought we’d put a Ford in victory lane there. But, congrats to Dale Jr.. It’s been a long time since he’s won a race so it’s good to see somebody succeed. But, heck, we just weren’t good enough at the end.”
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series now heads to Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California next Sunday.
