Dale Earnhardt Jr.: 'Big hurt' in my heart after missing playoffs
— -- RICHMOND, Va. --? Dale Earnhardt Jr.?ran like a playoff-type driver in the NASCAR Cup regular-season finale, needing to pull off the upset with a win, but there will be no storybook ending to his final NASCAR season.
Already having announced in April his retirement from full-time NASCAR racing after this season, Earnhardt entered the race 22nd in the standings and winless in 2017, meaning that he faced a must-win situation to qualify for the 16-driver playoff field on Saturday in the regular-season finale Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond Raceway.
"I'm disappointed," Earnhardt said after a 13th-place finish. "We had some odd luck [this year]. But when we didn't have bad luck, we didn't capitalize. We had a long summer.
"We just didn't capitalize. We didn't run like we should have. We ran like we should have tonight. If we had ran like that all year, like we did over the last several years, we would have made it. But we didn't."
The Hendrick Motorsports driver ran better than 13th much of the day, but he made a strategy play to try to win. He waited to pit for the final time deeper into the race than his competitors in the hope the caution would come out and give him favorable enough track position to win the race. The strategy backfired for Earnhardt, who appeared to have a car capable of finishing in the top 10 but not necessarily in the top five.
"That's all we could do to try to win; I don't know that we could have outrun the top three," Earnhardt said. "We had a long-run car that was really fast, and the guys did a great job."
Earnhardt is a two-time Daytona 500 champion and 26-race winner who has dealt with slumps at various times throughout his career.
"You're going to be disappointed if you don't make the playoffs," Earnhardt said earlier this year. "There'll be a big hurt in your heart because you feel like you deserved to be in that group.
"You feel like you're good enough and feel like your team is good enough, and when you don't make it, it doesn't feel good."
Earnhardt had said Friday he hadn't allowed himself to think much about a fairy-tale ending to the season. He has had just one top-five finish all year, but his three career Richmond victories gave his fans hope that if he landed on something for the race, he might be able to pull off the upset.
"It's on us," Earnhardt said Saturday night about missing the playoffs. "We can't really put it on nobody else. We just didn't do the job. We'll try these next 10 to keep running well.
"I'd love to win a race, but damn, if we can just run as well as we did tonight in the next several races, that would be great for all these guys."
Earnhardt was without his regular crew chief for Richmond. Greg Ives was suspended for one race for the Earnhardt car having two loose lug nuts following the race on Sept. 3 at Darlington. Car chief Travis Mack served as interim crew chief.
