NASCAR Cup Series

Hamlin, Junior have nerve-racking night

Published Sep. 11, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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It was a little more dramatic than Dale Earnhardt Jr. or Denny Hamlin would have preferred, but after nursing and cajoling a couple of wrecked and crippled race cars back to the front in Saturday night’s Wonderful Pistachios 400, they both find themselves in NASCAR’s Chase for the Sprint Cup field.

By the skin of their teeth.

Earnhardt, who needed to finish 20th or better in the race to guarantee himself a spot — and eliminate leaderboard-watching — eeked out a 16th-place effort to earn his first berth in the playoffs in three years. Hamlin finished ninth, which was good enough to claim the 12th and final Chase entry — as the second wild card.

Despite 14 drivers having a mathematical chance to shake up the Chase field, the top 12 drivers after Saturday’s checkered flag were the same as before the green flag dropped. There was just a lot of drama in between.

Both Earnhardt and Hamlin — in precarious positions on the playoff “bubble” to begin with — had auspicious starts to the race. Both were collected in a wreck only nine laps into the 400-lap race and had numerous stops on pit road to repair damage.

By the time Earnhardt parked his No. 88 AMP Energy Chevy on pit road after the race, it had tape holding up the rear end, a hole over the right front tire and a smashed-in hood. In addition to the early accident, Earnhardt brought out another caution after colliding with Marcos Ambrose and later when he made contact with Travis Kvapil while racing hard midway through the race

In all, Earnhardt was lapped by the field three different times — getting the “lucky dog” free lap back on all three occasions.

And yet when he climbed out of the car to survey the damage, he was grinning ear to ear and patting his crew members' backs — almost as if he had just contended for a win.

“I wasn’t worried at all,” Earnhardt said. “I had seen wrecked race cars run good at short tracks before and I figured we had all night to fix it.

“I felt like we were a good enough team and we’d get the job done.”

Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Toyota didn’t look much better than Earnhardt’s Chevy. And the two were quick to meet up on pit road commiserating and perhaps offering a collective sigh of relief.

“My car looks better than it really was and it looks bad,” said Hamlin, who finished second in the championship standings last year.

“My car is in shambles and somehow we got it to run good enough.”

Of his great adventures, Hamlin deadpanned, “That was not what I had planned on happening.”

“It was nerve-racking because every person that could win and then knock us out (of the playoff field) was running up front all day long. It was just like, if it wasn’t one guy, it was another.

“It was one of those days where. . . . They’re very nervous moments.”

For Earnhardt in particular, surviving Saturday’s race was vindication for his recent contract extension with the uber-championship Hendrick Motorsports team and restores NASCAR’s perennial “Most Popular Driver” to the championship spotlight, if not realistic championship contention.

“I’m proud to be in the Chase,” Earnhardt said. “I feel like I’m a good enough driver to be in the Chase, my team is good enough to be there.

“I can look back over the season and just easily think of several instances where we cost ourselves 10 or 15 points and made this situation difficult this weekend.

“But I’m proud to carry my sponsors and HMS into the Chase and represent them and hopefully we’re going to work real hard and do a good job.”
 

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