Incidents make for rough day for Earnhardt Jr.

By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com
September 3, 2001
8:41 AM EDT (1241 GMT)

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn't like Darlington Raceway. Hates it, in fact. Said so right there in his interview with Playboy magazine. Called it the worst track on the Winston Cup circuit.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had little to smile about at Darlington on Sunday.

Sunday's Southern 500 likely did nothing to lessen his distaste for the Track Too Tough to Tame. Earnhardt, seemingly not quite himself throughout the race and complaining consistently about his car and his prospects, was involved in at least two on-track incidents -- one with Stacy Compton, the other with Ron Hornaday -- that brought a warning from NASCAR.

"They said if we run into anybody else, we was gonna get parked," Earnhardt said.

Though there were no repercussions from those actions, Junior was clearly on edge Sunday, a point he admitted to his crew when he learned that NASCAR was watching him.

"I know what they're saying," he said in response to the warning. "I don't what's getting into me. I'm just not into it right now."

Nor was he into it after the race, when he was still fuming at NASCAR's decision to bring out the red flag with seven laps remaining.

"That's staged if you ask me," he said. "That's rigged. There wasn't a big enough wreck to red-flag that race and everybody knows it and everybody saw it. And they made a big damn deal out of it. It's ridiculous. They had plenty of time to get that cleaned up and have a three or four-lap dash."

His frustration with that decision was exacerbated by the fact that he believed the pause was a direct cause of the crash with one lap remaining that ruined his chance at a top-10 finish.

According to spotter Ty Norris, Earnhardt is a young man who is still wrestling with the expectations and pressures of a Winston Cup season. Combine the recent release of the report into his father's death with Steve Park's scary accident in Saturday's Busch race with his acknowledged distaste for Darlington Raceway, and the result is Sunday. Yes, Earnhardt learned a great deal from his late-season swoon last year, but he's still a work in progress. This Southern 500 was merely another rung on that ladder.