Earnhardt, Jr sees strong finish go away with big crash-UPDATE
Quote selected text Published October 29th, 2007 in NASCAR News
UPDATE:
Dale Earnhardt, Jr blames himself for ignoring the vibration on the car that ultimately led to a broken wheel and his subsequent hard crash at the end of yesterday’s Atlanta 500 Nextel Cup race.
“I was a little disappointed in me for being ignorant enough to think [the wheel] would stay,” Earnhardt Jr. said during a break in NASCAR’s test of the car of tomorrow at Atlanta. “They tell you when you’re a rookie when you come into this sport, if you have a vibration, have a problem, come into pits immediately, never try to drive through it, never try to fake it or hold together, save everybody trouble.
“I should have done that. I was bullheaded. I was frustrated. We hadn’t got our finishes this year. [I] thought we could steal a third place there, [but it] cost me a good spot, good finish. I was just disappointed that I didn’t do a better job, not only [for] my own safety, but everybody else’s.”
———————————————————
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had yet another strong race end with another bad finish.
This time, it wasn’t a blown engine that caused his problems, but a left rear wheel that completely fell off the Budweiser Chevy on the green-white-checkered finish and sent him toward the wall in a tremendous crash.
“Man… that was a HIT! It was hard and loud! BAM into that wall. I knew when I was sliding up there it was gonna be big… and it was. Loud and hard. We lost a left rear wheel. We must have had an issue with the hubs or something because we had loose lugs and a loose left rear wheel several times through the day. When that wasn’t a problem, we were fast as hell. We passed a lot of cars today but you can only do that if everything is tight and screwed on correctly. I knew we had a loose wheel on our last long run at the end of the race, but when we pitted the last time (on lap 319), we changed two right-side tires to get track position, but the left side was still loose. It must have gotten worse during the yellow flags. I dunno. All I know is I have a headache and I’m going to my bus to rest up…I did tell the medical staff ‘hey, if you say I’m injured, I can go home and I won’t have to test here the next few days’ but I’m all right and they wouldn’t go for it! ha!”
“We really had a fast car, but we had one thing after another that went wrong and we’d fight back every time. We had ignition problems at the very start, then got penalized for barely touching the cone at the entrance to the pit lane. Let’s see… after that I thought I had a tire going flat so we stopped under green and it turns out it wasn’t flat and we lost a lap. Then, we fought hard to get the lucky dog and we scrambled to get that back. We fought like mad to get back to the front - and we did - but we had a loose wheel on one of the long runs (laps 199-235) and I just did all I could to hold my position. Don’t ask me what was going on on those last restarts. It was a mess. The 11 car (D. Hamlin) stopped and the 99 (C. Edwards) passed us on the inside before the start finish line and it was chaos. After that, we were just hoping that wheel would hold on and get to the finish. It didn’t.”
Bookmark to:
- Michael McDowell walks away from violent qualifying crash at Texas-UPDATE
- Dale Jr. says DEI exceeding expectations in COT
- Dale Earnhardt, Jr preview on Phoenix
- Mechanical failure on Dr Bruce Kennedy plane crash?
- Avoiding crashes helps drivers chances in the Chase
That was a scary hit. I’m glad he’s alright!
I’m not a big Junior fan but that was too bad to see a good car wrecked.
Almost makes you wonder if Jr’s loose nuts may some how be connected with the water in Hamlin’s gas tank.. I wonder who the grinch of NASCAR is….
Wow that was so hard to see Dale lose a tire and then hit the wall.
But I am real glad that he is alright.
Any videos of this? I missed the race yesterday.
Thanks,
Jeff
I cant believe everytime Jamie McMurray is going to have a good finish he gets caught up in a wreck. That was a hard crash , glad Jr. is ok. Jr. was saying under the caution that the rearend was grinding and felt weird , did the lugs fall off or did it break and axel? Did they say on any of the recap shows?
I was listening to the race yesterday, and I heard them talking about JR
having a loose wheel…I was hoping it would stay on so he would get a good
finish…unfortunately, again, it wasn’t his day…I’m glad he’s okay. I
watched the race rewind video on NASCAR.com…when he hit…wow…that was
a hard hit…definitely glad he’s okay…
yes justin4rousch i know what you mean EVERY TIME
hey jeff http://www.nascar.com/video/cup/2007/10/29/cup.atl.junior.nascar/frameset.exclude.html?MostPopular
Val wrote:
….It’s called the pit crew not tightening
the lugnuts on the pitstop completely.
IM SO TIRED OF CONSPIRACY THEORISTS like Val
is Elvis still alive?
Did we never land on the moon??
Where does it end?
What? Did Theresa Earnhardt call up and tell them to leave the lugs loose since the motor hadnt popped yet?
Face it, DEI is making a ton of mistakes this year.
Lets face it Theresa is just too cheap to buy new parts
>
I wonder who is paying who off in DEI to make such mistakes on Jr’s Cars………………………………………. Seems this has all happened since he told them he’s out of DEI and over in the Henricks Stables………………………………………
WE are NOt Blind, Dumb or Stupid…………….
I’d Fire the Lot of them on the Pit Crew and see if the engines blow then and lugs are not tight the last three races………..
Bye, Bye, DEI…………………………………….
If this happens over at Henricks, there will be more than tires rolling down the race tracks………….
let that tire changer get within arms reach of real hard core dale junior fan and i’ll bring the popcorn
how many tires does a tire changer change?
i doubt it was his fault..
its more then that… how many motors have had something gone wrong in JR’s car? i think teresa has something in it…
Dink wrote:
Depends on the length of the race and what track.
Either way, it wasn’t something
the pit crew member could fix. The wheel was loose.
Can’t fix that during a race. He (Dale) should have taken
left sides on the last stop rather than right if he knew
he had that problem.