Dale Earnhardt Jr. has chugged a few beers on pit road with his crew after his final NASCAR Cup race while Danica Patrick's final race as a fulltime NASCAR driver ended in despair.
While Martin Truex Jr. clinched his first NASCAR Cup championship by winning the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, there was no denying Earnhardt Jr. his moment, surrounded by hundreds of fans.
"We're going to miss you Junior!" a fan of NASCAR's most popular driver shouted.
"Let's go, Junior! Let's go!" another yelled in a sing-song voice.
Earnhardt finished 25th on Sunday, the result a mere footnote in a career that counts two Daytona 500s, 14 most popular driver awards and universal respect in the garage.
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Patrick was clearly disappointed after a blown tyre resulted in her car being slammed into the wall.
"It's just the story of the year," she said.
Patrick will run the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500 in 2018, a two-race finale she dubbed the "Danica Double."
"There's still racing in my future," she said. "I still have a thousand miles to go."
Truex Jr. Truex edged fellow Toyota driver Kyle Busch in the seasonending race with only Kevin Harvick (fourth) and Brad Keselowski (seventh) the only other championship contenders in the field.
Truex won for the eighth time this year, continuing the most successful season of his journeyman career.
