Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the No. 88 National Guard/AMP Energy Chevrolet, finished 15th in Monday’s rain delayed event at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. Pit strategy enabled Earnhardt to work his way up from his 25th starting position and advance to ninth in the championship standings.
Earnhardt currently sits 82 points behind leader Kyle Busch and 36 points in front of 11th-place Clint Bowyer with four races remaining until the field is set for the Chase to the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Earnhardt started the road course event 25th and planned to make just two fuel stops during the 90-lap race. During the opening laps, competitors began making their way down pit road as different fuel strategies were employed. Earnhardt was running eighth on Lap 26 when his blue-and-white Chevy sputtered, indicating that it was time to refuel. Crew chief Steve Letarte called his driver to pit road for four tires and a full tank of fuel.
The leaderboard continued to fluctuate as drivers came down pit road based on their individual team strategies. Earnhardt had made his way to the third position by Lap 58 when he notified Letarte that he needed to make his way back down pit road to refuel his No. 88 Chevrolet.
Unless there were a certain number of caution periods in the latter part of the race, Letarte and the engineers knew that they were not going to be able to stretch the fuel mileage and that Earnhardt would have to come back down pit road one more time.
Earnhardt was running 19th when the caution flag waved on Lap 67 for an accident in Turn 1. Letarte called his driver down pit road for fuel and tires. Earnhardt restarted the event running 29th but quickly began working his way through the field. He was running 21st when the caution flag waved once again on Lap 95 setting up a green-white-checkered flag finish.
Things got interesting on the track during the final restart. Earnhardt took the green-flag 21st and managed to make his way past two accidents to finish 15th.