Earnhardt Jr.‘s nightmarish season continues

MARTINSVILLE – Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s nightmarish season rolled on, or, more precisely, continued limping along into the wall as Little E struggled to a 29th-place finish in the TUMS Fast Relief 500 on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.

Earnhardt, the most popular driver in NASCAR and the only Hendricks Motorsports driver to fail to make the 12-team Chase for the Sprint Cup, found trouble early and foundered throughout as he brought out back-to-back cautions early, blew out a tire on three occasions and finished the race two laps down.

Virginia native Denny Hamlin won the race, besting Earnhardt’s teammate, three-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson, by 0.443 seconds. Johnson had won five of the last six Martinsville races and leads the championship standings by 118 points over fellow Hendrick driver Mark Martin, who sits in second place with four races remaining.

Earnhardt is 24th in the standings with four races remaining and hasn’t finished higher than 17th in the last eight races.

The No. 88 Amp Energy Chevrolet suffered a flat right front tire on lap 89 when heat melted a tire bead, and though Earnhardt managed to stay on the lead lap, it was only the beginning of what became an abysmal afternoon.

His right front tire blew out a second time while coming around Turn 2 on lap 129, causing the car to slide into the wall along the backstretch, where he came to a stop before heading to the pits.

In both instances he received infractions for pitting before pit road was open.

He rejoined the field two laps back, in 34th place and fell to the back of the pack when rejoining the field from the pits during a caution on lap 180.

Earnhardt got back one of those laps when Kasey Kahne spun out on lap 209. Junior was also the beneficiary when Joey Logano wrecked A.J. Allmendinger in Turn 1 on lap 251, allowing him to rejoin the lead lap in 31st place.

Earnhardt nearly battled back to the top half of the field, climbing as high as the 16th position by lap 295. But Earnhardt’s promising comeback bid suffered a disheartening and crippling blow when he overshot his pit on lap 302.

He blew the right front tire a third time on the front stretch of lap 359 and rejoined four laps behind.