MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Nov. 25, 2024) – On Saturday night, Dale Earnhardt Jr. woke up some echoes of the past and painted Florence Motor Speedway Budweiser red.
Driving a throwback scheme to the glory days of his Hall of Fame career in the NASCAR Cup Series, the 15-time NASCAR Most Popular Driver put on a show for the monstrous, red-clad overflow crowd in the annual Florence 400, charging from the rear of the field into contention for the race victory before a fuel-pump problem ended his night 31 laps before the finish.
A subpar qualifying effort in the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet forced Earnhardt Jr. to start 40th in the 41-car field for the prestigious season-ending event, but it didn’t seem to matter a whole lot.
In the early stages of the 250-lap race, Earnhardt Jr. wasted little time getting after the cars ahead, avoiding a crash in front of him just three laps into the race. Over the next 46 laps, he methodically moved his way to 20th position, much to the delight of the jam-packed house.
Despite a growing tight condition on his Chevrolet, Earnhardt Jr. continued to move forward and made his first appearance in the top 10 at lap 75 as the Budweiser No. 8 found its groove on the top line.
With 20 laps remaining in the first 125-lap segment, Earnhardt Jr. swept into seventh and cracked the top five two laps later, setting up a charge that would see him pass former JRM Late Model start Josh Berry for second on the final lap before the break.
“I was worried up until the race started,” Earnhardt Jr. said after the race. “We had a really bad effort in qualifying. I knew the car was good but that’s kind of been a puzzle for me, trying to figure out how get the car to qualify. When the race started, I felt good about the car and just kind of picked them off as I could.
“I was pretty surprised we drove up to second in the first half. I was hoping to get into the top 20 or top 15 if we were lucky. The car was excellent and a lot of guys started to struggle with the balance of their car and lose drive on corner exit.”
On the 10-minute halfway break, crew chief Bryan Shaffer and the team changed four tires, added fuel and repaired some nose damage picked up in the latter stages of the first segment before sending Earnhardt Jr. out for the remaining 125 laps.
When the field went back to green, Earnhardt Jr. stayed behind leader Treyten Lapcevich, watching the leader’s line and making notes for the end. With 55 laps remaining, the caution waved and the field reset for the charge to the finish.
Telling Shaffer that the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet was handling well, Earnhardt Jr. took off from second and settled in behind Lapcevich, noting that the leader was shearing the rear tires and formulating a plan of attack.
As the laps wound down, Earnhardt Jr. tracked along in second until the caution waved with 31 laps to go. As the cars headed down the backstretch, Earnhardt Jr. radioed to Shaffer that there was a problem with the engine, as the powerplant shut off and could not be restarted.
Hitting pit road, the No. 8 team lifted the hood and discovered that the fuel pump had broken, ending his night. He would eventually finish 28th.
“It was about time to turn it on and for sure everybody was going to go hard and see what they had left,” Earnhardt Jr. said following the race. “Going down the backstretch under caution, the fuel pump broke and it started to starve. Nothing we could do about that.”
Lapcevich won the race over Doug Barnes, with local favorite Sam Yarborough third. Jacob Heafner was fourth and newcomer Carson Loftin rounded out the top five.
Following the race, Earnhardt Jr. said that his plan was to shadow the leader and eventually earn the top spot.
“In the second half, we were just going to sit there in second behind that 77 (Lapcevich) and I could see him start to shear the back a little on throttle and I thought when it was time to start pressuring him I could get him to lose some drive off the corner and be able to beat him.”
It wasn’t to be, thanks to the mechanical failure, but for quite some time on Saturday night, the glory days were back and the massive crowd celebrated the chance to see it happen.
