Wreck drops Earnhardt to last-place finish

Wreck drops Earnhardt to last-place finish

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

AVONDALE, Ariz.—Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s streak of top-four finishes ended with a loud bang as his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet clobbered the Turn 2 wall 180 laps into Sunday’s CampingWorld.com 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway.

Earnhardt’s misfortune was the result of a blown right rear tire, which supplier Goodyear later attributed to a melted bead, the edge of the tire that sits on the wheel, but Earnhardt thought he had worn out the right rear because his car was extremely loose.

“We just have to get the balance better where we don’t burn the tire off of it,” Earnhardt said after a quick check-up in the infield care center.

Asked whether there had been any warning the tire was about to fail, Earnhardt laughed.

“They never tell you they are going to blow out — never,” Earnhardt said. “You don’t ever have a warning. It will be alright.”

Earnhardt finished 43rd and dropped four positions to sixth in the series standings after running third, third and fourth in the first three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races of the season.

THE PRESSURE’S OFF — OR IS IT?

Surprisingly, winning crew chief Rodney Childers, who guided Kevin Harvick to victory in Sunday’s race at Phoenix, said he felt more pressure to win that event than he did entering last year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“Somebody asked me what was wrong with me this morning,” Childers said after the race. “I said that I felt more pressure to win this one race at Phoenix than I did to win the race at Homestead.”

At Homestead, Harvick and Childers teamed to win their first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, but the expectations this week at Phoenix might have been even greater, given that Harvick was riding a streak of three straight wins at PIR entering the race.

“When you bring him here, I think everybody expects him to win,” Childers said. “I didn’t want it to be my fault if we didn’t. Just proud of everybody, like I said. Just a great effort.”

And Sunday’s victory put Harvick one step closer to his goal of sweeping NASCAR’s West Coast swing. Harvick goes to next Sunday’s race at his “home track” — Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX) — buoyed by victories at Las Vegas and Phoenix, both in dominating fashion.

“When we left Vegas last week, (Harvick) made a point to say, ‘I want to win all three of these West Coast races,’” Childers said. “I think anybody that knows Kevin Harvick, if he puts his head to something, he’s going to try to make it happen.

“These races mean a lot to him. He grew up around here, has a lot of family around here. That’s our goal, for sure.”

AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

In a 2014 season that found him a half-second shy of beating Kevin Harvick for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship, Ryan Newman didn’t get his first top-five finish until June 8 at Kentucky Speedway.

After a superb third-place drive in Sunday’s CampingWorld.com 500 at Phoenix, Newman now has a pair of top-three runs in the first four events of the season and is eighth in the series standings.

Though Newman didn’t have a car capable of battling Harvick for the win on Sunday — no one did — he was pleased with the effort of his team.

“Yeah, our Quicken Loans Chevrolet was good but just not quite good enough on restarts, especially with cold tires,” Newman said. “But it was an awesome job by the guys, especially the pit crew.

“We’re knocking on the door. That’s two top threes in a row. But it was a good points day. We’re four races in and we’ve got two top fives. It took us until June last year to get our first one. So, we’ll keep digging.”