MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. can't climb into his No. 8 Chevrolet to drive for Dale Earnhardt Inc. these days without fearing what is beginning to seem inevitable: If his car is good enough to run up front, it's going to be bad enough to blow up.

It happened yet again during Sunday's Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway. In a race that was led by Earnhardt for 24 laps, he had to settle for a 23rd-place finish after his engine, which had been troubling him for much of the day, finally blew up just before the final restart of a race that actually stretched to 506 laps, six more than scheduled.

More than half dozen times this season, Earnhardt has experienced engine difficulties that have either caused him to DNF or STF. That would be Did Not Finish, or Staggered To Finish. Neither is good.

Afterward on Sunday, Earnhardt put on a good face and claimed he was not angry or upset. He was able to coax the car across the finish line to avoid another official DNF, but it was yet another bitter disappointment in a season chock full of them as he winds up his final season driving for DEI. Earnhardt will begin driving the No. 88 for Hendrick Motorsports next season.

"I am not upset at all," Earnhardt said. "We had a great day. I had a lot of fun. We ran really good, even on seven cylinders. We had a popping and spitting motor down the straightaway. I put those tail pipes in those other boys' ears so they could hear we were on seven cylinders and still driving by them.

"It was pretty fun. I am proud of my team, the car they built and gave me to race. It was really good, it drove great and we were competitive so I am not sad. I am sad for [new crew chief] Tony Gibson and the whole team because they deserve better finishes than this. But I can deal with it."

He wasn't dealing with it as well on Lap 286, when he first suspected the engine was not going to make it through the afternoon after causing him only mild consternation earlier.

It was then when Earnhardt came on his radio and cut loose with a verbal barrage that might have made Gibson blush.

"The motor's gotten way, way worse," Earnhardt told his crew. "That's why we're losing spots! I wish it would just blow up. I'm sick of being out here losing power like this ... I'm tellin' ya, man, I'm sick of this engine [stuff]. Have ya got something real old back at the shop that we can run the rest of the year? Something that will at least run?"

Gibson, in only his second race since taking over full time for Tony Eury Jr. [Gibson also subbed for a suspended Eury for six races earlier this season], came on the radio and added: "I'm not a fan of it myself. I know what you're saying. The engine guys can hear it on the backstretch and they think it's an inner spring. Hang in there. We're working on a fuel strategy to help you out here!"

"I don't care what you do," Earnhardt shouted back. "Throw me to the wolves. Leave me out here on 100-lap tires. That's cool. I'm ready to do battle!"

And so he did do battle. Despite the balky engine and the fact that he dropped all the way back to 27th when it first started causing him fits, Earnhardt sliced and diced -- and banged -- his way back toward the front. He got as high as fourth before losing a couple of spots, and was still lingering in seventh on Lap 500 -- which was when the race was supposed to end.

But when it went to a green-white-checkered finish after a seemingly endless stream of caution flags, his top-10 finish went by the wayside.

"We had a real fast car and ran in the top-five all day long," Earnhardt said. "We broke a valve spring somewhere in the first 50 laps and were running on seven cylinders all day. We were just so good anyhow that we were still better than most of the field with seven cylinders.

"It finally broke there right at the end. Too many cautions and restarts in the last 50 laps and the valve springs kept breaking and broke the motor even worse. It finally blew up."

What else is new?

Earnhardt stood by his claim that he still had a blast, mixing it up with the rest of the 43-car field. At one point, he moved Juan Montoya out of the way to take the lead. Another time, he blasted into and past Jamie McMurray -- and on still another occasion he exchanged blows with Kasey Kahne.

"It was very rough out there," Earnhardt said. "You had to dish it back out, though. I mean every time I got ran in to, I ran right back in to them or they were just going to keep doing it to you.

"I ain't going to get pushed around out there. You get angry, but you get back to racing and get back to what your job is. A bunch of them drove it to my door and I would put it back in them in the next corner. It was pretty fun."

Unfortunately for Earnhardt, it turned out to be another sad, if all too predictable, ending for the red No. 8 Chevy .