Ben Rhodes’ qualifying lap at Michigan ended the same way his last two did: empty tank. For the third time this season, Rhodes’ truck died mid-lap. This time, Dale Jr. saw comedy in tragedy. However, while Rhodes was facing misery, Dale Jr. couldn’t resist a callback to his brother’s own fuel nightmare.

Due to the fact that this team was unable to handle their fuel calculations properly, Ben Rhodes was unable to bring the best out of his truck. As Chris Knight mentions on his social media, “ThorSport Racing ran Ben Rhodes out of gas, and that’s why he did not have a good qualifying lap.”

While Rhodes fumed, Dale Jr. seized the moment for a joke. He commented on the said post with a picture of his brother, Kerry Earnhardt. When Kerry climbed in, he noticed the car felt lighter than expecte the photo, Kerry kneels beside his No. 3 car. The brothers share an inside joke here, as the said picture was after Kerry faced the same situation as Ben Rhodes and still had to pose for a picture while fuming over his team’s negligence.

This hilarious incident took place in the NASCAR Goody’s Dash Series, where Kerry Earnhardt used to race the no. 3 Chevrolet for Dale Earnhardt Inc. He had explained the entire situation some years ago, in 2020, when he was invited as a guest for Dale Jr. Download.

“I remember we went to Daytona. It was the black No. 3 Goodwrench Chevy Cavalier that I raced in those days. That was when they did two-day qualifying duels. So, the first day we went out to qualify, and we’d been practicing all week,” he recalls. “We go out there to qualify. I go in the pit road and take off. I get the green flag, take off at the white flag, and going into turn 1 run out of gas.

“So you had to come in, and you had to come down pit road. I mean, I was already mad about getting back to pit road because I ran out of fuel in Turn 1. And you had to get out of your car and kneel in front of your car to be pretty and take pictures. So how’d I be pretty when I am pissed off?”

Earnhardt explained that his team was practicing qualifying laps for the entire weekend and running multiple laps with low fuel in order to prepare him for the said qualifying session. The qualifying session was a two-day session in particular, and Earnhardt was set to participate in the same on the first day itself. Moreover, he had also warned his team about feeling something off with the car.

When Kerry Earnhardt got in the car for the first time to launch it towards the race track, he immediately noticed that the car was lighter than expected. He warned his team about the same, but ultimately accepted the decision, thinking that it was for the best. Although it came back to bite him right when it mattered. Due to this negligent error on his team’s end, he suffered during the qualifying session.

The next day, when he participated in the qualifying session with enough fuel to run his clock, his lap time without fuel was the same lap time that could’ve earned him pole on the first day. So even though he had enough pace, he still missed the pole due to his team’s decisions. It’s quite understandable how frustrated he would end up being after coming back on the same lap he decided to go for the push.

That same race also featured a hilarious moment between Dale Jr. and his father. As it turns out, Jr. was spotting for his brother Kerry Earnhardt during the race. He first mentions in the podcast that he ended up quitting the team mid-race. But it was Kerry who revealed the real story behind the scenes.

“Well, I come up on this one car, and I clear it. You never did answer, and next thing I know, Dad is talking to me over the radio,” he exposes Jr.’s lies. But Jr. wasn’t going to accept it so easily. He kept denying the same, but ultimately Kerry revealed that Dale Sr. went on to spot for him after this specific incident.

While the two anecdotes related to this incident are more than hilarious and a nostalgic memory for the Earnhardt family, what about the driver who suffered it during his weekend at Michigan?

Ben Rhodes pays dearly for the team’s mistakes.

It seems that fate has decided to play one rather heartbreaking game with Rhodes’ NASCAR career season. Once again, he ended up losing positions and favorable outcomes in the race for no fault of his own. While Ty Majeski claimed pole for the race in Michigan, Ben Rhodes ended up starting the race from 35th on the grid.

Unfortunately for him, he didn’t get a second chance like Kerry to at least match the pole time from the first day.

Ben Rhodes would end up finishing the race in P21 and couldn’t do anything to recover from the initial setback. His team was already facing a penalty wherein they had to replace two members of their pit crew. The mistakes from Michigan only add fuel to the fire for Rhodes, who has been missing out on good finishes and victories this season for random reasons.

ThorSport Racing must’ve been trying to run their truck as light as possible to get the fastest lap time possible, but the fact that they have lost significant points to fuel mileage concerns should’ve made them more careful instead of throwing it out on track without care for their fuel gauge.

Rhodes is still P6 in the driver standings for now, but the gap between him and the top 5 has increased to more than 60 points by now. With only a few races left in the Truck Regular Season, Rhodes won’t have a lot of races to make up this deficit. The postseason is where he will get his time to shine, even though he will only have a minor advantage compared to those in the top 3.

The Chase format allows for a driver to recover from their mistakes during the seven-race run in the postseason, but ThorSport Racing in particular has been making too many mistakes with their no. 99 trucks this year. In that case, the Chase format will only hurt Rhodes more, since there is no guarantee that he would participate in the championship race by winning once during the postseason.