Dale Jr. perplexed everyone didn't try to stretch fuel in Coke 600
One of six drivers who attempted to make it the final 62 laps of Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600 on one tank of fuel, Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished third when his No. 88 Chevrolet did indeed go the distance.
Speaking on Tuesday's episode of "The Dale Jr. Download" podcast on Dirty Mo Radio, Earnhardt seemed perplexed that not all of the lead-lap teams elected to top off their cars' fuel tanks under the final caution -- the strategy ultimately used by each of the top four finishers, including race winner Carl Edwards.
Although the caution flag never waved again and his No. 88 Chevrolet was initially about two-and-a-half laps short on fuel, Earnhardt was reasonably confident of making it to the end without having to come in for a late splash like those whom stayed out under the final yellow.
"I feel like we got what we deserved," Earnhardt said on Dirty Mo Radio. "We had a top-four car. We finished there. When the caution came out and it was time to pit, you could basically make it from there. I don't know why everybody didn't pit. I don't think it was really a fuel-mileage race or a gamble. It seemed like the sensible thing to do -- come down pit road and get a full tank of gas.
"I felt like that coming down pit road was just sensible because we were going to be able to get so close to the end and not have to pit under green. I mean, if you pit there like we did and get just one caution, you've saved enough fuel to make it to the end, so I don't know. It just seemed like everybody else would come. They didn't. I was kind of surprised."
While Earnhardt was conserving fuel over the final laps, the handling on his car also went away -- a predicament made worse by the absence of a top groove in turns 1 and 2 where track safety officials had placed Speedy Dry after Ryan Blaney's car went up in a plume of smoke with a little more than 100 laps to go, leaving oil on the track.
"I felt like they put too much Speedy Dry down," Earnhardt said. "They dusted it twice and then that stuff sticks to the track. Where you see that Speedy Dry up against the wall, it's not sticking to oil; it just sticks to the track. It's real fine, and it sort of makes it impossible basically to run up there. With only 100 laps left in the race, there wasn't going to be enough time to clean that up completely, so it took the top groove away from turns 1 and 2, which I was using a lot with a lot of success late in the runs, and I needed the hell out of that groove there at the end of the race, and I couldn't use it."
Even with the Speedy Dry in the way, Earnhardt tried to use the top groove in turns 1 and 2, to little or no avail.
"I ran up there close, but I needed another three or four feet to put that thing in the wind and get it really hauling (butt)," NASCAR's most popular driver said. "So that was frustrating that we couldn't get everything we could get on the high side late in the run. But we really weren't running full-throttle anyway, just sitting there making sure we made it on fuel."
"I think we improved on our setup from what we had in the All-Star Race, which I didn't think was very good," he said. We had some of the same issues, though, so we've got to work on that going back later this season."
