Dale Earnhardt, Jr. ran into trouble in the early going when he blew a right-side tire and scraped the wall, causing heavy damage to his Chevrolet.
“The tire went ‘pow,’ and then it went into the wall,” Earnhardt, Jr. said.
Earnhardt, Jr. returned to the track 45 laps later and ended up finishing 36th.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. cut a tire and slammed into the wall on Lap 103.
“No warning—it just popped,” Earnhardt said. “I was running about 90 percent really, not running hard at all. The car was handling pretty good, just popped a tire up there—might have run over something.
“It is pretty disappointing, because I was just taking it pretty easy. We ran real, real hard here in the spring and worked our car too hard. I was just going to take care of the racecar; that was what I was trying to do. We just got some bad luck there.”
“I would have slowed down if I knew the tire was going to blow.” he said.
The crash effectively sealed Earnhardt’s hopes of winning a championship in his first season with Hendrick Motorsports, relegating him to 36th. He remained 10th in the standings, 354 points out of the lead.
| 
|