Johnson and Earnhardt collide in troubled day for Hendrick Motorsports

The low point came on Lap 344 when Jimmie Johnson slid up into Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the backstretch. Johnson, who was running second prior to pitting on Lap 335, came back on the track on fresh tires and had caught the No. 88 Chevy when his car just let loose.

“He just plowed into us,” Earnhardt said over the radio. “That was a good time until it ended there. What the hell was that about anyway?”

The No. 88 team made multiple repairs to the car in an effort to bring it up to minimum speed. Johnson restarted the race 25th, Earnhardt behind him on Lap 350.

“I just have to try to figure out if I just didn’t hear it being told to me or if it wasn’t told to me,” Johnson said of the wreck. “I just feel terrible, obviously.”

However, Earnhardt didn’t complete 10 laps before spinning out in Turn 3.

“He said he didn’t see us,” Earnhardt said after finishing 30th. “He had pitted and got tires and we were out there running around the top and weren’t ready to pit yet. He said he didn’t get any notice that he had a car outside. He was coming to pass me. I was running the top right against the fence and really wasn’t watching the mirror, so I didn’t know he was there or anybody was coming.

“TJ (Majors, spotter) was giving me pretty good warning about guys getting on my inside, but otherwise when you are running the top you don’t have to worry about it everybody kind of takes care of you, but Jimmie didn’t know we were there. Came off the corner and didn’t know the car was there. It was an explosion, but the car held up pretty well. It knocked the sway bar arm off of it, so we ran the last bit of the race without a sway bar hooked up.”

Issues from the start

Problems started early for the Hendrick drivers. Earnhardt was running eighth on Lap 65 when the leaders came to pit. A speeding penalty mired him in traffic for the Lap 72 restart when the No. 88 Chevy restarted 26th.

Johnson’s issue came during pit stops following the second stage when the No. 48 pit crew had an uncontrolled tire. violation. Johnson was 12th after the second segment, but forced to restart 24th.

While he was back to 12th by Lap 262, the team elected to remain on the track to gain pit position. Johnson was second prior to their green-flag stop on Lap 335.

“Man, I’m surprised our cars even kept rolling after that because I just body slammed him into the wall and I could have easily not heard the clear or something else happened,” Johnson added. “I don’t know, but that’s the last thing you want to have happen with a teammate.

Not much good to take from Richmond

None of the Hendrick drivers earned stage points at Richmond. The top-finishing HMS Chevy on Sunday was Johnson, who recovered with an 11th-place finish. Kasey Kahne was 22nd after a speeding penalty on Lap 252. Chase Elliott, who ran in the top 15 most of the day, suffered a commitment line violation with 12 laps remaining in the race and ended up 24th.

But it was Earnhardt who took the biggest hit after finishing 30th, two laps down. He’s currently 24th in the Monster Energy Cup standings.

“It wasn’t a great day,” Earnhardt said. “We did make a lot of adjustments and that last run I was pretty happy. Obviously, we were trying a pretty wild strategy staying out. I was pretty comfortable it was going to work because our lap times were pretty decent and everybody else was coming to us that had pitted.

“So, it wasn’t going to be too bad. Just terrible luck. I don’t know what to do. But, we were probably going to finish anywhere around 10th to 15th today, not all that awesome, but (sigh) we just had such terrible luck.”