Dale Earnhardt Jr. will certainly not win Sunday’s STP 500, but that didn't stop him from getting his car back on the track.
A multicar wreck on Lap 228, also including Casey Mears, Paul Menard, Justin Allgaier and David Ragan, caused heavy damage to Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevy and sent him to the garage. The initial contact occurred between Ragan and Mears, and as drivers tried to slow down and avoid the two cars Earnhardt plowed into the rear of Menard's car.
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"Somebody got checked up there. We didn’t see it, didn’t have time and knocked the radiator out of it," Earnhardt told FOX Sports 1 in the garage. "It’s been a tough race. The car has been fast and we’re having fun out there, but we aren’t going to have too much fun out there the rest of the day."
.@DaleJr drives through the garage. Heavy damage to the front end of the No. 88. #AskMRN pic.twitter.com/BVu0FUhMwT
— Motor Racing Network (@MRNRadio) March 29, 2015Earnhardt was struggling with vibrations inside the car the entire race prior to the wreck Lap-228 incident.
“We were having some transmission or gear problems,” Earnhardt said. “The engine power, torque and all that was really beating on some stuff in the drivetrain. I think we got a real bad vibration in the car and it kept breaking the shifter.
"It was so bad it would break the shifter right off there at the top of the transmission because it’s just swinging up there like a tuning fork. We got a different one on it finally, don’t know if that one was going to hold up — didn’t get to find out.”
UPDATE: It appears Earnhardt has decided to return with a slightly modified version of the No. 88.