Dale Earnhardt Jr. comes in as runner-up at Dover

At Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup AAA 400, Dale Earnhardt Jr. looked close to breaking his 47-race winless streak.

Earnhardt led the field from the pole at Dover International Speedway and managed to carry his lead through most of the first hundred laps.

But during a round of green-flag pit stops on lap 115, Earnhardt missed the pit entrance after failing to slow down enough. He hit the pit road a few laps later, but when the cycle of stops was over, Earnhardt had fallen to eighth.

“I take responsibility for getting a little too eager coming onto pit road for that green flag stop,” Earnhardt said.

“We’re lucky we didn’t have more trouble through that whole deal. I didn’t know what the heck the rules are for that, so I was figuring we got off pretty light.”

He caught up by the 300th lap, though, and was a contender for the lead. By the end, he captured the second-place spot.

{link:He said he was happy to have placed, but not satisfied. : "http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sbnation/SBNation_20130929_NASCAR_Dover_2013__Dale_Earnhardt_Jr__not_satisfied_with_runner-up_finish.html"} “I feel like in the last couple of weeks, we've been able to really show what our team's capable of,” Earnhardt said.

“We've been really quick on the sheet every day, fast in practice. The changes we're making, everything seems to be working right, going in the direction you want. I feel like when we get it right, we can compete and we can win.”

“We came really close today,” he added. “I don't feel like today was a highlight for us. I think this is how it's supposed to be every week.”