Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets his fourth win of the season at Martinsville
Dale Earnhardt Jr. now has something he's wanted since he was a kid. A Martinsville grandfather clock.
NASCAR's most popular driver stormed through the field on a restart with five laps to go and passed Tony Stewart for the race lead and the win on Sunday.
Junior had a healthy lead late in the race but a caution flag flew when Kyle Larson and Marcos Ambrose spun around. The caution with 12 laps to go gave crew chiefs an incredibly tough decision: stay out and keep the track position or pit for tires and hope the fresh rubber would be enough to make up the positions lost on pit road.
Junior and crew chief Steve Letarte chose the latter. The No. 88 car came for four tires and restarted fifth after Stewart, Ricky Stenhouse and David Ragan stayed out and Clint Bowyer, who was running third before the caution, took two tires.
Junior was second after the first set of corners thanks to a three-wide jam up ahead of him. When he got to Stewart's bumper, it was absolutely no contest. Junior was finally going to have the clock the speedway gives out as the winner's trophy for every race.
"We've been trying to win here so many years," Junior said. "And this place is so special to me. I've wanted to win here so bad. And we came – we brought some good cars – I'm out of breath more from celebrating than driving."
"Real emotional win. This team on pit road was great and Steve and the guys just did a great job all day. They gave me a great shot at the there with the call at the end to get tires and I can't believe we won here. This means so much to all of us."
The win also comes 10 years and two days after a plane carrying Hendrick Motorsports employees crashed en route to Martinsville. Throughout Sunday, it seemed a pretty good bet that a Hendrick car would win. Junior was good at the end of the race and Jeff Gordon, who finished second, led the most laps.
Junior was with his old team, Dale Earnhardt Inc. when the plane crashed.
"I lost my daddy a long time ago and I know how hard that is," Junior said. "I can't imagine losing the magnitude of people Rick lost. My heart goes out to him during this weekend. And I love that his cars are good here and give him a victory. And this honors them. Just real proud to be able to win at Martinsville in a Hendrick car. They always win here."
His win is Hendrick Motorsports' 22nd win at Martinsville.
It was an incredibly real celebration for Junior in victory lane. Sure, he's out of the Chase thanks to a porous three-race stint in the second round that included crashes at Kansas and Talladega. But the man was so damn happy after he got out of his car. He jumped up on the makeshift victory lane stage and hugged team members before he had to be told to do the customary post-race interview.
After all, it was his fourth win of the season. He has four wins this season, his most in any season since 2004. Heck, entering the season he had only had four wins since 2004.
Junior was jubilant – he called winning races "the best thing" – and enjoying the moment of what could be his last victory with crew chief Steve Letarte, who is leaving to be an analyst with NBC Sports in 2015. What's the celebration going to entail?
"We're going to drink a lot of beer tonight," Junior said. "That's what's going to happen."
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
