Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car was up in steam after getting caught up in a crash. (Getty) MARTINSVILLE, Va. — When you check the box score after Sunday’s race at Martinsville you’ll notice that Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 34th, one of five drivers who didn’t finish because of a crash.
Yeah, it’s a bad result. And it’s the the third time in the first six races of 2017 that Earnhardt Jr. has finished 30th or worse. But had Junior not gotten caught up in a chain-reaction accident on lap 417, it’s pretty easy to think he could have scored his first top-10 of the year.
“I love this place,” Junior said of Martinsville. “It was a lot of fun today. The car was really good. [Crew chief Greg Ives] and the guys made a lot of changes last night and made our car way better.”
A top 10 would have been a heck of a comeback from an eventful day for Junior too. He started mid-pack and was one of a handful of drivers who were dinged for speeding on pit road. And more than 275 laps before the crash that ended his race, Junior went spinning down the backstretch after some contact with Ryan Blaney off turn 2.
“I was having a great time,” Junior said. Good hard racing out there. Got turned around, got back toward the front, leaning on guy, a lot of fun. Everybody is having a good time out there.”
Junior was one of the most aggressive drivers on restarts throughout the day too. He had no problem diving into turns 1 and 2 and using his car to root others out of the way in the corners. The aggressiveness paid off as he drove his way back to the front in the laps after the spin.
But when Denny Hamlin’s car slid into Danica Patrick’s on lap 417, all the others right behind the two had nowhere to go. Junior was included in that group and a busted radiator ended his day. Because of the poor finish, he’s now 25th in the points standings one-sixth of the way through the season.
“They just stopped and I couldn’t,” Junior said. I got into the back of [teammate Kasey Kahne].* His bumper knocked the top of the radiator off of it, knocked the fitting off the top of the radiator.* We don’t have much of a bumper on there to begin with keeping the cars as light as we can and that is about the second or third time I’ve knocked the top off the radiator here. I wish they were a little tougher than that, so we could beat and bang and keep going.”

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of Dr. Saturday and From the Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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