TALLADEGA, Ala. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a wealth of experience explaining how he wins Sprint Cup races at Talladega Superspeedway.
Crashing twice in the same race? That requires a bit more time.
A six-time winner at NASCAR’s biggest track, Earnhardt Jr. was involved in two big wrecks and another unusual incident during Sunday’s GEICO 500. The first crash involved Earnhardt losing control of his car; the second found him pinched into the outside wall by Carl Edwards’ sliding car.
In between, Earnhardt found himself trying to steer his car with the steering column after the steering wheel came off.
It was not the kind of Sunday the tens of thousands of Earnhardt Jr. fans in the grandstands — or the driver himself — expected at one of his best tracks.
“Hell, I’m going home,” Earnhardt Jr. said after the second accident. “I’m done. We need to park the car for a while, too.”
The car, nicknamed Amelia, was rebuilt after trouble in the season-opening Daytona 500. Now, after double trouble at Talladega, she might rest indefinitely.
Earnhardt Jr. admitted losing the handle on his car, causing a crash on lap 51. Kasey Kahne also was involved.
“I got in a bad area with the wind and the air, and it just got loose and spun out,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “The same thing that happened at Daytona (in the 500) to us. We just got to look at what we are doing on our adjustments and try not to do that.
“The splitter was on the ground real bad the whole first run, and we took some rounds out of the back, and that really made the car too loose off the corner.”
After repairs, Junior returned to the track, only to have the steering wheel pop off. He quickly replaced it, but then Edwards’ car broke free on the track and slammed hard into Earnhardt, ending his day.
“The steering wheel came off, and I was trying to get it back on and the car was headed toward the wall,” Junior said. “I wasn’t going to let it hit the wall, so I grabbed the column and steered it with that. Tore my hands all up but didn’t hit the wall.
“We have to look at something to keep that from happening any more.”
Then came the second crash.
“We were just out there riding around, and something broke on the No. 19 (Edwards’ car), and he came over and got into us. We just had no luck this weekend.”
Edwards said his Toyota failed suddenly.
“Something just let go there and you hate to collect anybody, so definitely sorry to the 88 guys for getting their car involved in that,” Edwards said. “We had something torn up there, drove down into turn one, and I just felt the right front fall down and that was it. You’re kind of just along for the ride.”
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PHOTOS: Behind the wheel with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
