Earnhardt Jr comments on final restart

Dale Jr.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. met with the media after Sunday's race at Talladega:

Walk us through the final restart and your take on it:

Earnhardt, Jr. "I couldn't believe he (Joey Logano) gave me the bottom. I was like 'man this is a gift.' I was going to win the race for sure, but that caution came out. I'm fine with the new rule. Everybody is going to debate that we were thinking before the race that they made a good change on the green-white-checkered to go to one and I still feel that way. Per the rules we run second. I can live with that. The #22 (Joey Logano) did a great job. He had a hell of a round winning all three races. If he wins the championship he can look back on this round here as the one that set him up."

"I'm proud of what we did today. We did everything we needed to do, just fell about the width of the splitter. You know how I hate that splitter, so, another reason (laughs)."

Should NASCAR have let you run longer under that green-white-checkered before throwing the caution?

Earnhardt, Jr. "Another 100 yards I would have been in the lead, but NASCAR makes the calls. They are the governing body and I have 100 percent faith in the choices that they make. I'm not going to be too upset about it. I did everything I could. I'm proud of myself. I'm proud of my team. My guys did a good job on pit road. We had a little issue, but if this group sticks together we are going to do great things next year. I believe in all of them. I'm proud of what we did. We can sit here and pout about this day, but we didn't do good enough in the first two races of this round. If we had done better in those first two races of this round we would not be worried about losing by a splitter. We didn't do a good job in those first two races. We've got to try to win another race before the year is out, have some fun. Martinsville is coming up. I'm excited about that. We've got a great team. This is my first year with Greg and we are just going to get better. He is just going to get better. We've got a lot to look forward to. It's disappointing, but I'm proud of the car. We really worked hard and we did a hell of a job today." Chevy Racing