It was as uneasy as 1-2-3.

1. One big, controversial wreck.
2. Two inexplicable pit-road blunders.
3. Three, at the very least, drivers called him out.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Daytona 500 began with promise. He ran up front early and passed Kyle Busch for the lead on Lap 53. But on his subsequent pit he missed his stall. Track position was gone.

A pitiful day

• Daytona the pits for Junior
• Video: Junior's pit mistakes

"If you look down this pit road, my sign is pink and every other sign is pink so it's hard to see," he summized. "They're all about the same color."

Later in the race when he came to pit, his tire was on the line, which is a no-no in NASCAR. Changes were made to the car anyway, resulting in a one-lap penalty.

"We had a pit stop where I was told the right-front tire was only an inch over the line," Earnhardt said. "I was held a lap for that and I don't feel like that was a fair trade. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate that rule."

And it was just a few laps later when things went from bad to worse. A collision between he and Brian Vickers triggered a multi-car crash that took out several lead cars. Both Earnhardt and Vickers were running a lap down at the time.

Vickers blamed Earnhardt, as did lap-leader Kyle Busch. Earnhardt was defiant.

"I got ran into and sent below the line. What the hell? I don't want to go down there, I didn't aim to go down there, and I got sent down there. What the hell am I supposed to do?" he quipped. "Then what am I supposed to do? Stay down there? No. I got to get back up on the race track.

"If he wasn't so damn reckless, we would have never had that problem, that would never happen. As far as I am concerned, it is all his responsibility."

But Jeff Burton must not have thought so.

"I was trying to get my lap back and I think it was three-wide and [I] put him in the middle sometime or another on the restart and he got shuffled back to the back and wrecked and he was upset with me for making it three-wide," Earnhardt said of Burton, before defending himself further.

"But rain's coming, time to try to win the race, you know what I mean? Time to try to get back on the lead lap. So I had to run hard and Vickers could have just held his ground. I had a big ol' run on him and I went to the inside. I didn't try to make no late move, I just kind of eased on over there and he went to block me and hit me in the fender and sent us both off. He drove us down in the grass almost and I didn't have much control over my car after that."

For NASCAR's most popular driver in NASCAR's most popular race, it was not a good day. Was Junior at fault for the wreck (watch video)?

But an even bigger question has emerged: Is the pressure of driving for Hendrick Motorsports, where there are no excuses, finally getting to Dale Jr.? Even he admits pressure led to his first pit-road mistake.

"I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to get up in there and try to lead a lap and all that and I just wasn't thinking good," he said.

He must not have been thinking good when he said this about Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth.

"Matt won. Good deal. Congratulations. He always says that he wants me to tutor him on these plate tracks. He finally got his damn trophy and can give me some damn pointers."

Final Turn: Weigh in on Junior, pressure and the Daytona 500
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