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NASCAR practice crash wrecks five cars at Talladega
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Dale Earnhardt Junior’s hopes of a rally in the championship standings at the track where he’s considered a favorite took a hit both literally and figuratively at Talladega Friday.
 Crew members work to replace the engine in Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s car during a practice session for Sunday's Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Ala., Friday, Oct 3, 2008. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt) |
A right rear tire exploded on Earnhardt’s Chevy at the start of the final on-track practice session sending the car careening into the fourth turn wall. The crash involved at least four other cars.
Kasey Kahne, David Reutimann, Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart were among those swept up in the crash.
"I just saw tires flying and then smoke," Kahne said. "I didn't know really where to go. I hit it a little bit, but it tore up the front of the car bad enough that we'll definitely need to go to our backup car."
Clint Bowyer was also forced to a backup, Stewart's crew opted to try and repair the damage on their machine.
The crash added more misery to Earnhardt’s bad day. Earlier the team was forced to change an engine in the car. Under NASCAR rules, because the engine change happened after the first practice, Earnhardt will have to start from the rear of the field Sunday no matter where he qualifies on Saturday.
"The tire seemed to come apart at the tread and the sidewall," Earnhardt said. "We looked at the car and nothing fell off it. Normally you look at exhaust straps and stuff like that; but this just came out of nowhere.
"I will look at some of the replays to see if anything came out from under it. Maybe we can find it on the replay -- something we might have run over.”
After the crash, the team was forced to a backup car but the five-time winner here seemed to take it in stride.
"It is unfortunate,” he said. “There are a lot of man-hours that go into the primary car. That was our Daytona Shootout car. But we still have a good car for the race.”
Earnhardt didn’t seem too upset at the challenge he’ll face Sunday as he’ll try to improve his eighth spot in the standings.
"We really aren't any further behind than when we unloaded here," he said.
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