Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins in his first race as a NASCAR crew chief in Xfinity Series one-off at Pocono
The Nascar Hall of Famer, Dale Earnhardt Jr., won his first race as a team leader on Saturday, guiding driver Connor Zilisch to the victory in the Nascar Xfinity series at Pocono Raceway. Earnhardt made a occasional appearance at the top of the stand box of the team n ° 88 JR Motorsports, to fill Mardy Lindley which served a suspension of a race for the wrong nuts that are wrongly secure found in the post-course inspection in Nashville Superspeedway.
After having qualified the ninth, Zilisch has made his way forward thanks in large part to the strategy calls of Earnhardt, which had the n ° 88 at the top of the ranking at the end of step 2. Earnhardt then made Zilisch run until the end of his fuel window before trapping under Green, who paid for dividends when a well -understanding prosthesis head of the head while the other Frontrans of the Pipinners.
Despite the loss of the advance of Chase Elliott shortly after, Zilisch remained in the game and capitalized on a series of restarts, finally bringing back the advance of Jesse Love with less than five laps to go for his second victory of the season and the third of his career as Xfinity.
NASCAR 2025 racing schedule, results: full list of race dates for cuts of cuts, winners, tracks, locations
Steven Taranto
It was all in a working day for Earnhardt, who did everything, changes in the configuration and pit strategy to help their stand team by catching tires behind the pit wall. Addressing CW Sports after the checkered flag, Earnhardt awarded the help of the former team leader and a broadcaster partner Steve Letarte, who once guided him towards a rebirth at the end of his career which included a pocono scan in 2014 as well as a victory at Daytona 500 2014.
“We have had a lot in our sense. A lot of luck, an excellent strategy. Ay had a little help from Letarte here,” Earnhardt told CW Sports. “… I missed the thrill of the competition. I love broadcasting, don’t get me wrong, but nothing compares to driving or just being part of the team, and being a owner does not really deliver like that. It’s very fun.”
The victory of Earnhardt as team leader is the last addition to his curriculum vitae in the XFINITY competition, which includes 24 career victories as pilots and consecutive championships in the series in 1998 and 1999. EARNHARDT also won four championships in the series as a co -owner of JR MOTORSPORTS, including the title 2024 with Justin Allgaier.
Earnhardt also joins a limited group in Nascar’s history for winning races both as a driver and team leader, joining names such as Junior Johnson, Cotton Owens, Lee Petty and others.
