Rough day for Earnhardt Jr.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Sunday’s 51st running of the Daytona 500 will not go down as one of the highlights of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s career.

Twice the Hendrick Motorsports driver had problems on pit road and he helped cause a nine-car accident which caused the end of the day for three of the race's top contenders. Just after the restart following a caution during which he was penalized a lap for pitting outside his box, Earnhardt was trying to become the first car a lap down when he dove low to get around Brian Vickers.

Vickers elected to block the 88, but Earnhardt dove even lower before turning back up the track and into the back of Vicker's car, sending it sideways and starting the huge wreck on lap 123. Among the casualties was Kyle Busch, who had led 88 of the race's previous laps, Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin and Roush Fenway's Jamie McMurray.

Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards also were involved, but neither incurred much damage.

“We’re all racing for the Lucky Dog there, and my goal was to keep Junior behind me and I went to block him,” Vickers said. “I beat him to the yellow line and then he just turned us. He hit me the first time on the way down, which is fine, we all do that. Then when he came back up he just hooked me in the left rear.

“The 38 (Jason Leffler) was penalized five laps yesterday for doing the same thing (in the Nationwide Series race). I guess they’re not going to penalize him. To wreck somebody intentionally like that in front of all those cars is dangerous. I was just doing what I had to do. Blocking is part of superspeedway racing, and it happened to me all day.”

Earnhardt defended himself and put the blame squarely on Vickers.

“I got a big ol’ run on him and I want to the inside,” he said. “I didn’t try to make a late move and try to make it some surprise or anything. 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 sent me down to the grass and I was trying to recover my car and I got back into him coming back up the track. I don’t hate it for him, but I feel bad for the rest of the guys who wrecked.”

Busch, understandibly, was not pleased with the incident.

“It’s unfortunate two guys got together and started fighting over nothing,” he said. “One guy who had a problem all day on pit road made his problems our problems and then our problems a big problem.

“Us, the 24 (Jeff Gordon), the 11 (Hamlin) and a couple of other guys were strong, but I felt like our car was the car to beat. We were awfully good and just running up front and biding our time. This is just a really sad feeling.”