Jr. shakes off rare criticism

FONTANA, Calif. (AP) — Dale Earnhardt Jr. found himself early this week in the rare position of being the object of a chorus of criticism from fellow drivers, the media and even fans who normally support him unconditionally.

“I did get ripped up quite a bit,” NASCAR’s most popular driver said Friday at Auto Club Speedway. “I didn’t even want to go on the web.

“It’s interesting to be on this side of the fence,” Earnhardt added. “I’m not on this side too much.”

The complaints arose after Earnhardt ignited a 10-car wreck on a restart late in last Sunday’s Daytona 500, the low point in a race filled with mistakes by the Hendrick Motorsports star.

Junior was trying to pass Brian Vickers with both of them a lap down but near the front of the lead pack. Vickers blocked the move by pushing Earnhardt down below the yellow out-of-bounds line. He hit Earnhardt in the process, and when Earnhardt came back onto the racing surface, he clipped the left-rear corner of Vickers’ car. That sent Vickers shooting across the track and the melee was on.

That’s when the finger pointing began.

Earnhardt called Vickers “a damn idiot” and Vickers returned the compliment, saying that Earnhardt should have been penalized by NASCAR for aggressive driving and had crashed him intentionally.

“I definitely could have used better judgement coming back up on the racetrack, but it’s hard to tell,” Earnhardt said after the opening practice for Sunday’s Auto Club 500 at the Southern California track. “I mean, there was rain coming, I was a lap down [and] I had to get my lap back to even have a shot at winning the race.”

Jeff Burton, who was involved in a later crash, confronted Junior after the race, accusing Earnhardt of forcing him into a three-wide situation that pushed him back in the pack and, three laps later, put him in the wrong spot at the wrong time. He was long over it by Friday.

“I thought [the Earnhardt-Vickers wreck] was a typical Daytona, Talladega wreck where one guy tries to protect his spot and the other guy needs the spot and you misjudge by 6 inches and there’s a wreck,” Burton said.

Earnhardt said he called Vickers early this week to make sure there were no hard feelings.

“He said it was intentional on the television and I wanted to make sure he knew it wasn’t intentional.”