Dale Earnhardt Jr. posted a 26th-place finish in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway. (Photo: Getty Images)
If you want some idea of how badly the wheels have come off Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s season, about all you have to do is read what reporters were saying following Junior’s 26th-place finish in Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway.
And that is to say, virtually nothing.
Earnhardt, far and away the most popular driver in NASCAR, a man who when he hiccups makes national headlines, was virtually invisible over the weekend at Infineon, where he didn’t meet with the press on Friday as the drivers in the top 12 in points are required by NASCAR to do.
Nor did he have any comments for the press after the Infineon race, where he was caught up in an accident not of his own making and finished outside the top 25 for the fifth time in the last seven races.
The bottom line for Earnhardt is that he lost two more positions in the Sprint Cup points standings and is now 20th, a whopping 277 points out of 12th place with just 10 races to go in NASCAR’s regular season.
And as a result, few were writing about Earnhardt this weekend, an unusual state of affairs, to say the least. The fact that Earnhardt is no longer a story in the NASCAR media is, in and of itself, big news.
