Notebook: Junior's tap triggers multi-car crash

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The only incident in Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout at Daytona International Speedway came within a few hundred yards of the finish line.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. bumped Elliott Sadler from behind, turning Sadler sideways into Denny Hamlin. Kasey Kahne was caught up in the aftermath when he was unable to avoid Hamlin's spinning car.

"It's self-explanatory if you watch the tape," Junior said. "I got into the back of Elliott trying to bump draft and he wasn't up on the straightaway yet. I got into him too early and wrecked him and wrecked both racecars. I'm sorry about that.

"We were back there, trying to do what we could do and I was trying to help a friend of mine and just got over-zealous and overdid it."

Sadler said he spoke with Earnhardt after the crash, and understood that the accident was unintentional.

"It's just good, hard racing and caught me right where I was a little loose anyway," Sadler said. "It's a shame to make it that far -- almost all the way to the end -- then have problems."

Earnhardt was credited with 14th, Kahne 15th, Sadler 16th and Hamlin 17th.

Electrical short leads to short night

Jeff Gordon's night came to an early end because the No. 24 Chevrolet suffered from intermittent electrical problems.

"It just kept cutting in and out and at least it didn't happen right in the middle of a big pack," Gordon said. "We had one of those nights going on anyway. We had some overheating problems right from the beginning and then we had some handling issues toward the end of that run."

Ryan Newman was another who didn't make it to the finish, retiring with engine failure.

"We dropped a cylinder, or we dropped something in the engine and it went down to seven or seven-and-a-half [cylinders] and eventually it just failed," Newman said. "I was hoping it was my plug wire or something simple that we could fix." (Continued)