Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s hot start to the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup season endured a bit of a setback Sunday at Auto Club Speedway.
Earnhardt Jr. made contact with the right-rear quarter panel of Kurt Busch's car early in the race, then battled the handling of his car. He later overcame an ill-timed caution en route to finishing 11th.
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After the contact with Busch, Earnhardt Jr. found himself struggling more in the Auto Club 400 than he has during his recent races. Still, after the race he wasn’t offering much in the way of complaining.“I thought we had a good car yesterday in practice and I was kind of looking forward to the race and then when we started we were real tight,” he said. “The No. 41 [of Busch] came in front of me off of [Turn] 4 and I just couldn’t do anything. He was clear, but I couldn’t stop. I had so much momentum and that hurt the left-front real bad and bent the splitter.
“So, we fought that all day long. We changed a shock and helped the balance a little bit. We changed and changed and changed and worked on the car all day. We got it to where we could race a little bit.”
Things were looking better with Earnhardt Jr. once more moving into the top 10 when he opted to pit a little early — then watched the caution flag come out.
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“We were up in the top 10 pretty good and short-pitted a little bit for that last run and that damn caution came out for a piece of debris in the middle of the cycle,” he said. “That killed us.”
Still, he continued to praise the way the cars are racing this season — just as he has after the recent races in which he has enjoyed better outcomes. Earnhardt Jr. entered this race with three consecutive top-10 finishes. Even though that ended, he still showed enthusiasm for Sunday’s racing.
“I had a blast,” he said. “I love racing here regardless of what aero package we have. This is a fun track. I like the low downforce. What can I say? I’m having fun and had a good time today. Usually, you would be real frustrated driving the cars we drove the last two years finishing 11th, but I had fun running anywhere on the racetrack. No matter where we were we were racing somebody and driving the thing.”