Credit: Autostock
By Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive
February 17, 2003
10:55 AM EST (1555 GMT)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- If Dale Earnhardt Jr. ever tires of driving racecars, he may want to try his hand at psychic reading.
He's pretty darn good at it.
Throughout his dominant Speedweeks performance, Earnhardt Jr. maintained that his fortunes were going a bit too well. He'd won the Budweiser Shootout, his Gatorade 125-mile qualifying race and the NASCAR Busch Series affair, and qualified on the outside pole for the Daytona 500.
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Hence, he started Sunday's race eyeing a coveted slot in the history book. Only Fireball Roberts had ever won four races in one stop at Daytona, and even Roberts' achievement paled in comparison to what Junior was on the cusp of accomplishing.
Roberts won an all-star race, a 100-miler, a 25-mile sprint in which the winner earned the Bud Pole and the Daytona 500. No one had ever swept the Budweiser Shootout, their 125-mile qualifier, the Busch Series event and the 500.
Junior was a heavy favorite to close the deal. Still, something didn't feel right. It was too good to be true.
By the midway point of Sunday's race, his apprehension proved legitimate.
 | VIDEO CLIPS |  | Dale Earnhardt Jr. loses three laps to battery problems
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|  | Earnhardt Jr. leads after the first rain delay
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| |  | Michael Waltrip passes Johnson for the lead
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On lap 87 of the rain-shortened event, Junior was running second to teammate and eventual winner Michael Waltrip when he noticed the voltage levels in his battery had begun to decrease.
Despite turning off all non-vital systems and moving towards the rear of the field, the problem persisted.
The alternator had failed and he was losing ground quickly. He pitted to replace the battery, losing two laps during a minute-long stop on pit road.
When he returned to the track, he was laser-quick once again. He helped Waltrip draft past Jimmie Johnson and into the lead, and regained one of his lost laps before the sky opened.
Once the rain began to fall, so did Junior's bid at making history.
"We've got a great racecar and we had a heckuva week and regardless of what happens we should be real proud," Junior said during the rain delay. "But we've seen this movie a thousand times, so I won't be surprised if they call it and we end up a lap down."
Frustrated with a 36th-place finish in no less than a second-place car, Junior refused comment after the race. His crew said the problem was easily repairable, and that they were confident Junior would have been back on the lead lap when it was time to get down to the proverbial nitty gritty.
That never happened, and Junior's prognostication became reality.
Beware, Ms. Cleo.
Peer hard into that crystal ball.
Junior may just come steal your job.
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