Earnhardt Jr. reflects after playoff cutoff

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s career will end without having won a championship in NASCAR's Cup Series.

While the feat was an uphill task with how the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team has run this year, Earnhardt was officially eliminated from contention for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup trophy Saturday night. But he didn't go down without a fight – one of his season's best – at Richmond Raceway.

Steadily driving into the top 10 after starting 21st, Earnhardt was able to keep pace with the likes of eventual winner Kyle Larson, Brad Keselowski and Erik Jones. But the only hope for Earnhardt and interim crew chief Travis Mack was a win. So, late in the third stage Mack kept Earnhardt on track in hopes of catching a timely caution before making their final pit stop. The yellow never came and Earnhardt pitted after leading 13 laps.

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"That was the only way we were going to win the race," Earnhardt said after finishing 13th following a chaotic overtime restart. "We weren't going to pass the top three guys. I mean, we had speed. We could run up to fifth and sixth. We weren't going to get around those five guys running in front of us. So, we had to pull that strategy. If the caution comes out while we're leading, then we got that track position we need."

Crediting crew chief Greg Ives – who was serving a suspension for two loose lug nuts at Darlington – with preparing the team for the weekend, Earnhardt said everyone stepped up, was more vocal and worked hard. The car, which he called "great," also performed as needed. In a race where it mattered the most, Earnhardt ran where he's accustomed and expected to.

"That's the way we should have run all year," Earnhardt said. "Apologize to our fans we're even in this situation we're in tonight. We believe in ourselves and we should have been locked in before we got here. Wasn't a great season performance-wise, but we got 10 to go. Tonight showed us that we can certainly run well if we work hard.

"We'll see if we can get a few more good runs. Maybe a win, you never know. Talladega is the racetrack that anybody can win at. We'll keep plugging away and see if we can't have some fun before the end of this season. It was a fun night, though. It was great to run with the leaders, run up front. We haven't done that in a long time."

Richmond was the sixth race this season Earnhardt has led laps. However, in each of those races, Earnhardt failed to finish in the top 10. Now 26 races into in his final year, Earnhardt has an average finish of 21.3 with four top 10 and one top-five finish.

Winless since the fall of 2015, Earnhardt has 10 races to try and go to victory lane one last time. Of the remaining tracks, Earnhardt has won at six of them.