Dale Earnhardt Jr. picked up his second win of the season today at Pocono. Junior took the lead from his old protégé Brad Keselowski with five laps remaining to win the “Pocono 400.”
With his second win of the season, NASCAR’s most popular driver is almost certainly locked in to the 2014 Chase. With this win, Junior also has multiple victories in a season for the first time in a decade.
The day ended in heartbreaking fashion for Keselowski, who dominated most of the race, leading 95 of the 160 laps only to finish second.
Junior won the “Daytona 500” at the start of the season and this win proves that he is capable of being a legit contender for this year’s championship.
The scariest moment of the race came during an incident involving Junior’s teammate Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch. Kahne slammed the wall extremely hard when Busch slid up the race track and cut him off. Carl Edwards had no time to react, and he crashed into the back of Kahne. The throttle stuck on Kahne’s car, and he continued down the straightaway and slammed the wall again in the next turn. He walked away with no injuries.
Kurt Busch, pole-winner Denny Hamlin, and rookie Kyle Larson rounded out the rest of the top-five. Jeff Gordon regained the points lead from Matt Kenseth, who got into trouble early and finished 25th.
The series heads to Michigan next weekend for the “Quicken Loans 400,” which will air on TNT at 1:20pm Sunday.
