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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Earnhardt Jr. Says Team Good, Not Great
Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn't satisfied with finishing eighth at Texas Motor Speedway...
Bob Pockrass  | http://www.scenedaily.com  |  Posted April 20, 2010   Fort Worth, TX
Dale Earnhardt Jr. is seventh in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 46 laps and had a top-10 car, maybe even a top-five car, Monday at Texas Motor Speedway. And in Earnhardt Jr.’s world that’s good, but not great.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver led seven times and was third on the restart with 12 laps remaining thanks to a two-tire call in the Samsung Mobile 500. He wound up eighth and moved up three spots in the points standings to seventh.

“We have a lot to work on still,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “Right there at the end, I just couldn’t hold them off. The [guys with] new tires were coming. I tried to pinch everybody down and they just run me up into the fence off the corner and I drove it in the fence once myself. We’re getting better, but we still have a lot to work on to get better.”

Though he challenged teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, Earnhardt Jr. never felt he had a race-winning car.

“We were just lucky on track position,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I thought we had about a sixth-place car; a fifth-place car maybe, but not a third-place car. We were just a little bit off in the center off the corner.

“We worked on it and worked on it but we couldn’t really nail it and get it just right, and at the end I was a little bit too tight getting in and it was too loose off. Two tires won the race, but when you’re running third in the dirty air with two tires, you’re just not quite as good. We just kind of got shuffled to the back there. It was just unfortunate. We had a good top-five car.”

Earnhardt Jr. was frustrated over the beating and banging late in the event.

“I was having fun until all those cautions kept coming at the end,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “We run 450 miles to sit there and settle it in a bunch of mess there at the end of the race. It is kind of stupid, but that is the way it went down, so we will see what happens next week [at Talladega].”

Earnhardt Jr. said he was proud of his team.

“We’re a good team,” he said. “We can be a great team; we just have to keep working.”

SceneDaily.com • Richard Childress says talks continue on new contract for Kevin Harvick; doesn’t expect Kasey Kahne to drive for RCR

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Bob Pockrass

SceneDaily.com

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