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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Dale Jr.’s win extra special

Earnhardt recalls Hendrick tragedy

Winner Dale Earnhardt Jr., right, gets a hug from Tony Stewart. (Associated Press)
Jenna Fryer Associated Press

MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Dale Earnhardt Jr. earned his fourth win of the season on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway in an emotional victory a week after he was eliminated from the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.

Jeff Gordon was second, giving Hendrick Motorsports a 1-2 finish on the 10-year anniversary weekend of the fatal plane crash that killed owner Rick Hendrick’s son and nine others aboard.

“This means so much to all of us,” Earnhardt said. “I lost my daddy a long time ago and I know how hard that is. I can’t imagine losing the amount of people Rick lost. My heart goes out to him during this weekend. This honors them.”

Gordon was the highest finishing Chase driver. Without a Chase driver in Victory Lane, no driver clinched an automatic berth in the championship finale at Homestead.

“That means so much to Hendrick Motorsports,” Gordon said. “That’s the best way you can possibly pay tribute to those that we lost 10 years ago. To have a 1-2 finish, that’s pretty awesome. I would have loved to have gotten that win to move on to Homestead, but this is certainly a great start for us.”

Chase driver Ryan Newman was third, and Tony Stewart finished fourth. Chase drivers Joey Logano and Matt Kenseth were fifth and sixth.

Running fifth, Stewart gambled and stayed on the track after the race was red-flagged with 10 laps left.

Earnhardt and Gordon pitted for fresh tires, and that one final stop was just enough for the successful finish.

“If we had to do that 100 times over, we’d do the same thing,” Stewart said. “We didn’t have anything to lose. It was worth the gamble.”

Other Chase driver results included: Denny Hamlin eighth, Carl Edwards 20th, Brad Keselowski 31st and Kevin Harvick 33rd.

“We tried to win here so many years,” Earnhardt said. “This place is so special to me. I wanted to win here so bad. We’ve brought some good cars.”

Keselowski was in the hunt until he lost the transmission in the No. 2, causing a multi-car crash that involved Edwards with 64 laps left and forced a red flag.

The second red flag of the race came out with 10 laps and lasted for nearly 10 minutes. Earnhardt and Gordon lined up 1-2 and instantly took off for pit road when the green flag dropped with five laps left.