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Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. eliminated from Chase at Talladega

Jeff Gluck
USA TODAY Sports
Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s best season was 2003 when he finished the season ranked third.

TALLADEGA, Ala. — A season that seemed so promising for Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his championship-hungry fans is over with four races to go.

Earnhardt was eliminated from the Chase for the Sprint Cup after finishing 31st at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, a race he needed to win in order to make up for disappointing results at Kansas Speedway and Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Though he led twice for 31 laps, Earnhardt was in the middle of the pack late in the race and was hooked by Greg Biffle on a green-white-checkered overtime finish, leading to a crash.

"I still really don't know what happened," he said after the race, sounding subdued. "I haven't had a chance to look at it. Got wrecked by (Biffle) a little bit. I don't know if I came down on him or what. I thought I was holding my line. We were all kinda tight back there."

And now?

"The race is over," he said. "Time to go home."

Later, Earnhardt said he didn't blame Biffle for what happened on the backstretch and tweeted it was "hard racing."

"He got an untimely push and was turned into me," he tweeted. "Plate racing."

Earnhardt ended the second round of the Chase in 12th place – last among the remaining contenders – and was one of three Hendrick Motorsports drivers eliminated along with Jimmie Johnson and Kasey Kahne. Now 40, Earnhardt's quest for his first championship will have to wait another year.

Though he was clearly disappointed, Earnhardt chuckled when asked to quantify his emotions and said "there's probably been worse things."

"I'm not retiring or anything, so we'll try next year," he said. "We've had a good season, got a lot to be looking forward to. Definitely not gonna get too tore up about it."

This was a magical year for Earnhardt, and it seemed like big things were in store when the Chase began. After crew chief Steve Letarte announced he would move to a TV role in 2015, Earnhardt won the Daytona 500 and swept the races at Pocono Raceway – the same number of races he won in the previous eight years combined.

Now he's eliminated, although he'll still be on track for the final four races and has the opportunity to finish as high as fifth in the standings.

"We'll just go try to win some more races before the year's out," he said. "That's all we got left."

"We just didn't have three good weeks," Letarte said on the team radio. "This Chase doesn't define our year. We've had a great year. We still have four trophies to go get."

The opportunity to make it happen at Talladega was certainly there. He made bold moves early in the race, but one in particular backfired with about 80 laps to go.

While attempting to pass Johnson, he ended up in the middle lane and got shuffled out of the top 10. He was never able to get his track position back after that.

"We needed to be up front, we needed to be in the top four those last few restarts," he said. "Those are the guys who have a shot at it. It's just the way the draft works. You're not going to pass 12 cars there in six or seven laps. We tried, it just didn't work out."

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