Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashes at Bristol, frustrating season continues

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s race on Monday unfolded like so many others have in 2017 -- a mediocre finish that left NASCAR’s most popular driver frustrated, hoping his season would soon turn for the better.

A parts failure on the No. 88 Chevrolet caused oil to get on the tires, and when the Food City 500 restarted after a caution for an accident involving Kyle Busch, Earnhardt’s car became uncontrollable and he drove straight into Bristol Motor Speedway’s outside Turn 1 wall.

“We broke something in the oil system under caution,” Earnhardt said. “I noticed when I was getting lined up double-file for the restart the car was smoking … and went into Turn 1 on the restart and the car went straight into the wall with oil all over the tires.”

Earnhardt finished 38th in the 39-car field, his fourth finish of 30th or worse in eight Monster Energy Cup Series races this season. He fell four spots in the standings to 24th heading into next Sunday’s race at Richmond International Raceway.

“It’s unfortunate,” Earnhardt said. “We weren’t running that great, but we were working on our car and trying to figure out how to get it to run better and get something out of today.

“But, we are going to have another bad finish. We have had a lot of them this year.”

What compounded the frustrating afternoon was that, even before the accident, Earnhardt was lacking competitiveness. After starting 20th (qualifying was rained out on Friday and the lineup was set based off points) he never ran higher than 17th during the race, originally scheduled for Sunday but postponed a day due to inclement weather.

Earnhardt said he battled a tight-handling car, and because it wouldn’t turn he wasn’t able to accelerate off the corner as other drivers were. It was an issue that first arose during final practice on Saturday, and despite some changes it carried over to the race.

“We did have some good practices and felt pretty confident, but apparently, whatever we got into the car late in the last practice we didn’t tune it back out,” Earnhardt said. “We were really tight in the center and tight in the throttle and guys beating me really bad back to the gas. That ain’t no way to run anywhere really.”