Cars of Dale Jr., Burton take a beating at Texas

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s exemplary record at Texas Motor Speedway took a hit Monday when he was knocked into heavy contact with the Turn 1 wall during the Samsung/RadioShack 500.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. goes spinning on lap 183.

Earnhardt Jr., who scored his first Winston Cup victory at the fast 1.5-mile oval in 2000 and added the Bud Pole Award for this event a year ago, made contact with the lapped No. 49 Dodge of Shawna Robinson.

Junior, who led a lap in the race under the first green flag pit sequence and was running just outside the top 10 at the 167-lap halfway point in the 334-lap race, backed into the fence with the left rear corner of the car on lap 183.

“This is real disappointing -- we needed to run well here,” said Junior, who came into the event sixth in points. “I think Shawna’s a good race car driver but they better put her in better race cars because she ran into me.”

Earnhardt Jr. appeared to be favoring his left shoulder when he exited his car, but was quickly treated and released from the HCA Infield Care Center at Texas.

The car of Ward Burton is towed to the garage.

Crew chief Tony Eury and the Dale Earnhardt, Inc. crew attempted to repair the car to return to the race. He came back on the leader's 258th lap, 73 laps down.

Thirty laps later, Earnhardt Jr.'s car was retired after failing to pick up any positions. He ended up 42nd.

Earnhardt’s car was garaged in the stall next to the No. 22 Cat Dodge of Ward Burton, which brought out the race’s third caution about 12 laps earlier when it hit the wall between Turns 1 and 2.

Burton remained in the care center for more than 150 laps, where he underwent x-rays to determine a possible source for neck pain. After the x-rays were negative, he was released at about lap 235.

"I don't know if it was camber or what, but we blew a tire going into Turn 1," Burton said. "There really wasn't any indication (of a problem). I noticed it about 100 yards before I got to 1 and slowed up a little bit.

"I think we probably had a top-15 car, but we sure hit pretty damn hard -- I know that. They checked out my neck, but I think I'm all right."