A NASCAR thought, or Dale Jr. can go F himself.

OK....this is a college football blog, and I am not what you would consider a NASCAR junkie, but I watched the Daytona 500 yesterday and I've got some thoughts.



First of all, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a good guy, or he has been. He's eminently likable and honest, and I look forward to hearing his thoughts on post race interviews. This is mostly because oftentimes he finds himself explaining some boneheaded blunder that caused himself and his team to be on the outside looking in. "Well...I kinda got loose out there a little bit, wrecked a couple Childress cars...sorry about that." When he was with DEI, he could always fall back on the possible limitations of his team to explain his lack of success the past couple of years. Since he has been with Hendrick however, there are very few excuses...his team is top notch. The fact he has won only once has more to do with his mediocre driving than anything else.



Fast forward to yesterday. Again, as he strapped it in on Sunday, he had as good a chance as anyone...great car, solid crew, support from the best team in the game, and a restrictor plate track, his personal specialty as a driver. But then it all starts to unravel. He misses his pit box completely, 100% his blunder, causing him to lose ground. Then, when he actually finds the box, he creeps over the line, causing him to fall a full lap behind. So now, his solid crew is a lap down due solely to his own butchering. Now he's pissed off. As his subsequent interviews would suggest, he feels he's the victim. He can't see the pit boxes because the colors look the same. The punishment of a full lap for an inch over the line doesn't meet the crime. AAAARGGGHH! He's on the road to another bad finish, when he should have been there at the end, and all he can do is blame his own buffoonery.



Well, Dale Jr would have none of that. All that matters is that he make up that lap so he can commerce his assault on the front of the field. Fast forward to lap 123. Earnhardt gets a run on Brian Vickers and attempts to make a pass on the inside, where, of course there exists a double yellow out of bounds line. As is almost always the case in a restrictor plate race, Vickers moved down to block Earnhardt. This is legal. How dare he do that!!! Brian Vickers?? He hasn't won anything and drives a Toyota!! I'm Dale JR!!!!! A very convenient target, that Vickers. Unfortunately, as evidenced later in his interview, Earnhardt is too obsessed with his own situation to realize that Vickers is also attempting to get back on the lead lap, and currently possesses what Earnhardt wants, the "lucky dog" free pass in the event of a caution. So Vickers moves down to block Earnhardt. Earnhardt claims that Vickers bumped him, causing him to lose control and then run into Vickers' rear quarter panel. A ver convenient story, but not the case, as anyone with two eyes can see. After Vickers blocked Earnhardt, Junior gathered himself. He then made the conscious decision to wreck Vickers, knowing full well that his reputation would trump Vickers's.



Then he has the gall to tell his crew over the radio to have Vickers meet him in the garage if he "wants his ass beaten.". That's all Vickers needs, a confrontation with Junior leading to 70,000 toothless inbred Junior fans threatening anal rape and a shotgun blast to the face for the rest of his life.



It's pretty obvious to me. Junior wrecked Vickers because he was pissed off, tired of losing and figured he could get away with it because of who he is, and who Vickers is. Maybe he's trying to get a personna like his father. Good for him. It can only help his marketability, because it certainly appears that he's too much of an ignorant slackjawed hillbilly to rely on his smarts or driving prowess.