MARTINSVILLE, Va. – By far Dale Earnhardt Jr. had his best showing of the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, but just as his year has gone, the Hendrick Motorsports driver doesn’t have anything to show for it.
Earnhardt spent much of the STP 500 running in the top-10 but during a round of pit stops on Lap 396 of 500, he was tagged by NASCAR for speeding on pit road, which sent him to the rear of the field on the restart.
“Well as far as what I see on my dash I wasn’t speeding, but (NASCAR) has better technology than we do,” Earnhardt said. “They said it was in the segment out of my pit box. Hell, I must have got out of there pretty damn good. I don’t know what to do about that.”
Mired back in the field because of his mistake, NASCAR’s most popular driver found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time in a multi-car accident that ensued in Turn 3 on Lap 418.
With significant front-end damage, Earnhardt was forced to take his No. 88 Axalta Chevrolet to the garage – with a broken radiator. With NASCAR’s new damage policy, the Hendrick Motorsports team were unable to repair the car within the allowed repair window leaving him with a 34th place finish.
“I love this place. It was a lot of fun today,” said Earnhardt. “The car was really good. Greg (Ives, crew chief) and the guys made a lot of changes last night and made our car way better,” Earnhardt said. “We got bottled-up there in (Turn) 3 and they’re ain’t no bumpers on these cars.
“It knocked the radiator out of it. So, we’re out of the race. We went to the garage to try to fix it, but can’t with the new rules. So, we’re done. I was having a good time. But, I’m disappointed with the way we’re finishing.”
With the sour finish, Earnhardt has now gone the first six races of the season without a top-10 finish – the longest streak to open a new season in his more than 17-year career in the Cup Series.
“We’ve got to finish better than this,” he added.
The 42-year-old has now dropped to 25th in the series standings and his best finish so far this year was 14th at Phoenix last month. The Kannapolis, N.C.-native also holds three finishes of 30th or worse.
Earnhardt heads to Texas Motor Speedway hoping to turn around his season after finishing second in the Lone Star State last April.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
