Pit road gaffes hamper Dale Earnhardt Jr. again

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s pit crew has struggled with leaving wheels loose at times this season, and it happened again Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.

On the first pit stop, crew chief Greg Ives called for two tires. Front tire changer David Mayo accidentally knocked two lugnuts off the right front tire and immediately told Ives, which resulted in Earnhardt coming back to pit road for a second stop.

Earnhardt worked his way back through the field for a top-10 finish, but the loose wheels seem to be happening all too often for the No. 88 team this season -- including the Bristol race earlier this season.

So is the pit crew's performance a worry for the Chase for the Sprint Cup?

“We’ve had some issues,” Earnhardt acknowledged. “I’m going to let Greg handle that. He sees what’s going on. I still tonight don’t know exactly what happened, and I really don’t want to. I don’t want to have a personal opinion.

“I’ve got personal friendships with these guys. (Mayo) on the front, I’ve got a real good friendship with him where he’s in our Madden league (on Xbox). So I don’t want to get in that side of it, because I’m not going to make that decision anyway if I form an opinion either way. I’m going to leave it up to Greg to make that decision.”

Ives, asked if he was concerned about the pit crew’s performance, said he was “concerned about everything” related to the car because “that’s my job.” That goes well beyond just the pit crew, he said.

“My job is to fix it,” Ives said of the various performance issues which pop up from time to time. “I think we’ve been trying to go in the right direction. Nobody on this race team wants to be that guy or (be) in a position to put us in a bad spot.”

Overall, Ives said he felt the No. 88 had the “right people in place” and it was up to him to get the best out of each person.

“I feel like our race team is not showing our capabilities as far as finishes,” Ives said. “I feel like we have smart people behind us and guys who have been here and done that. We’ve got to just use our experience and try to keep moving forward.”

Said Earnhardt of the pit crew situation: “(Ives) will make the changes that need to be made if changes need to be made. But I stay out of it because it’s not my expertise.”

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PHOTOS: Dale Earnhardt Jr. through the years