Approximately halfway through the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series final green-flag run on Monday at Pocono Raceway, crew chief Greg Ives radioed to driver Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“The 41 (leader Kurt Busch) needs to save (fuel) to make it. We do not. Go get him!”
But over the closing laps, the handling of Earnhardt’s car tightened up, and he was unable to track down Busch, even though the eventual race winner was in fuel-conservation mode.
Earnhardt thought he could have been more effective in keeping Busch behind him after the final restart.
“I should have been able to hold that No. 41 (Busch) off on that final restart,” Earnhardt said. “Me and the No. 24 (Chase Elliott) were racing pretty hard, and it gave the No. 41 the opportunity to get a run on us.
“I should have been able to defend that a little bit better. If I could have gotten in front of him, I don’t think he would have gotten by us.”
But Earnhardt also acknowledged his runner-up finish might have been better than the car deserved.
“We certainly finished better than we should have,” he said. “Our car wasn’t quite a second-place car. We started off really tight and really slow, probably about a 15th-place car.
“Greg and the guys made a lot of changes and made the car better. Don’t really know exactly how much better we got it compared to the competition, but we certainly made it more competitive.”