Dale Earnhardt, Jr. mashed the accelerator on his Chevrolet, spun the rear tires and saw the leader drive away while two cars passed him on a late-race restart.
Earnhardt thought he had blown the race.
But before the two cars that had passed him late in the NASCAR Sprint Cup UAW-Dodge 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway could get through the second turn, they both crashed as Matt Kenseth’s Ford and Jeff Gordon’s Chevrolet made contact.
What followed was sheer calamity as Gordon’s car nailed the inside wall near an opening on the backstretch, destroying his car. Kenseth would also suffer damage in the incident as NASCAR officials waved the red flag, stopping the race just five laps from the finish.
That’s when Earnhardt realized he was right back where it all began; in second-place behind Carl Edwards.
“Shoot, I had a shot to try to beat Carl,” Earnhardt said. “We had some pretty good restarts during the race. I should have been paying a little more attention to what the 17 (Kenseth) was doing, trying to lay back a little bit myself to get a better start. Carl sort of slowed down real quick before he went. 
“When I jumped the gas, my car just spun like hell.  Tire’s so hard, hard to get hooked up on the restart.”
Once the race was restarted, Earnhardt chased Edwards for two laps heading to the checkered flag.
Although Edwards got his second-straight win, Earnhardt scored his highest points finish of the season with a second-place.
“Yeah, that’s really fortunate,” Earnhardt said. “I would have talked myself into being satisfied with a top-five finish no matter where it was. After last week, I just needed to get that kind of a finish.”
One week after finishing ninth in the season-opening Daytona 500, Earnhardt’s season of rejuvenation was expected to continue in Fontana, Calif., last Sunday. But in a race that was marred by rain and “weepers,” Earnhardt was a victim of a crash involving Hendrick Motorsports teammate Casey Mears and Sam Hornish, Jr.
Mears lost control of his Chevrolet when he ran through some moisture in the first turn at California, sending his car into the wall. Hornish hit the wall, cutting his brake lines and sending the hood up over his windshield.
Earnhardt tired to avoid the crash lost control of his car, smacked the wall and was out of the race with a 40th place finish.
So, as the Cup competitors arrived in Las Vegas, Earnhardt was trying to regain some of that lost momentum and was in position for a win.
But this is Las Vegas and just as the dealer at a casino tries to sucker the players, Edwards and Kenseth tried to sucker Earnhardt by laying back on a restart.
“We worked so hard to get into second and get by Matt Kenseth,” Earnhardt recalled. “You get so mad. I wanted a shot at Carl, but he was just so strong. And he kind of conceded that fact with 10 to go. You hate to see the cautions come out because you know guys are going to pull tricks out of their bags. 
“Matt laid back a little bit on that restart when I spun my tires. I should have been laying back. I can’t complain about him laying back. I was the one that should have been laying back.”
Earnhardt admitted it has been so long since he has been a threat to win races that he has nearly forgotten the subtleties and tricks that are played on late-race restarts.
“I’ve been out of the game so long,” Earnhardt said. “Hell, man, I ain’t had a whole lot of practice at that stuff. So I looked like a tool out there. I was running in the back of Carl when I should have been waiting and getting a run. I was running into the back of him, spinning tires and the 17 (Kenseth) and 24 (Gordon) got the run. 
“I should have been doing what they did. That’s what you have to do. It’s a fine line I’m sure with NASCAR what they perceive as a jump or laying back too much. But I wasn’t. I needed to be a little more aggressive trying to get into the gray area with that. I was staying caught up, being a little too nice about it.”