Early in the Pure Michigan 400, Dale Earnhardt Jr. teased his legion of fans with the prospect of a third victory at Michigan. Earnhardt led twice for 20 laps and at one point opened a lead of more than two seconds over his closest pursuer.
Earnhardt’s race came to grief, however, when he blew a right front tire on Lap 135 of 200 while running eighth and pounded the Turn 2 wall.
“(The car) was down on the splitter getting into the corner,” Earnhardt said. “I got it slowed down pretty good and then started getting close to the wall and put a little brake in it, and it blew the tire out…
“It’s just kind of frustrating. It’s just bad luck. We need to shake that. We just can’t keep having this every week.”
Winless this year, Earnhardt fell one position to seventh in the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings, just 20 points ahead of 11th-place Kasey Kahne. Another star-crossed run could in one of the next three races could knock him out of a Chase position.
Earnhardt, however, isn’t in panic mode.
“There are guys in worse positions than us,” he said. “I think we’ll be all right. We’re not an 11th-place team. We’re a top-five team. We’re consistent. We’re more consistent than most. We just got to shake this luck, whatever is going on.
“It’s something different every time. We’ve got good speed, and we’ve just got to keep our head up and keep working hard, and things will be all right.”
