Compton, Dale Jr. still fuming over scrape
By Dave Rodman, Turner Sports Interactive
September 6, 2001
11:58 AM EDT (1558 GMT)
DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Richmond International Raceway is not a place you want to go carrying a grudge, but homecoming Virginia driver Stacy Compton isn’t sure what ground he’s on with fellow Winston Cup pilot Dale Earnhardt Jr. heading into Saturday night’s Monte Carlo 400 with the Looney Tunes on the .750-mile oval.
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Earnhardt Jr.'s bump sent Compton spinning.
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Compton’s last Sunday drive ended on the tip of Earnhardt Jr.’s bumper, and even after he had a chance to cool off at Darlington Raceway last weekend, the Melling Racing Dodge driver didn’t know quite what to make of the last two months of the season. He said he’s tangled several times with “Little E’s” No. 8 Chevrolet in that span.
“There’s 42 cars out there you can race with and one you can’t,” the bitterly disappointed Compton said. “I can race with everybody out there, and everybody’s give and take.
“But for some reason, when you get around Junior, there’s no giving -- it’s just all taking, and I just hate it for the Kodiak guys. We had the best car we’d had in a long time. That’s the third time the 8 car hit me today. He finally accomplished what he was trying to do and took me out.”
He wasn’t the only one who noticed. After Earnhardt Jr. nudged Compton into the inside wall on the frontstretch, the NASCAR’s race director relayed a message from the control tower through crew chief Tony Eury that the next contact Earnhardt Jr. made with another car Sunday would be dealt with promptly.
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Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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Earnhardt Jr. maintained he carries no ill will from track to track and that the incidents at Darlington, which included tipping Hut Stricklin’s No. 90 Ford into a spin that brought out one of 11 cautions, were just racing incidents.
"Compton, I felt he kind of came down on us,” Junior said. “Stricklin -- I just pushed up into the side of him. Spinning into Stricklin was my fault, but I felt like Stacy got up underneath in the corner -- I don't feel like I was at fault there."
Earnhardt Jr. has repeatedly claimed that Darlington is one of his least favorite venues, being a track on which “you try not to crash or spin out in every corner.”
“Man, I did not think he was going to go three-wide there,” Earnhardt Jr. said of the accident with Compton. “I left him room, but only enough room for two-wide.”
It was little consolation for Compton, who goes to Richmond to drive both his Winston Cup Dodge and the Ram truck owned by Melling and James Harris in Thursday night’s Kroger 200.
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Stacy Compton
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“It’s the best car I’ve had all year,” Compton said at Darlington. “I had a great run going, but it wasn’t meant to be. It just wasn’t our day.
“I don’t know. Every time he gets around me he turns me around or wrecks me. He wrecked me at Sears Point twice; he wrecked me last year at Sears Point. I guess that’s just racing -- I don’t know. I just don’t understand.”
Compton said he tried to discuss the incidents at the California road course with Earnhardt Jr.
“He said, ‘Hey man, I just got into the back of you, sorry,’” Compton said. “It’s a shame because I don’t have to work on the cars, these guys do. It’s none of my guys and none of his guys -- it’s just a nut behind the wheel.”
Ironically, Junior made it through the rest of the race unscathed, only to be harpooned on the next-to-last lap by an out-of-control Dave Blaney between Turns 1 and 2, while they battled for positions in the top-five. The contact knocked him back to 17th at the finish.
So he’s happy to go to Richmond, a track where he’s won in both Winston Cup and Busch Series races. He has the added incentive of going for $1 million in Winston’s “No Bull 5” bonus program.
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Compton is 34th in the Winston Cup standings.
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“A million dollars -- we’re ready to go for it,” he said. “The team has built an awesome new car and we’re pumped up and ready to go.
“This has always been one of our best tracks, so I don’t think the Winston deal could have come at a better time. Plus, it’s a night race, and it seems like we really kick butt at night.”
Compton may not have a million bucks on the line, but the Hurt, Va., native is equally enthused about Richmond.
“The results haven’t shown it but the last five weeks we’ve really been good,” he said. “Michigan, Indy -- we were really good. I think the people up and down pit road know what we’ve been doing, we just can’t buy a break right now.
“That’s all part of racing. You’ve got to take the good with the bad, and we’re just in a stretch of bad right now.”
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