Dale Earnhardt Jr. to rear as controversy swirls around pole

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.  Whether the fix was in or not, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won't start first in the Daytona 500.

A crash in Sprint Cup practice Wednesday sent NASCAR's most popular driver to a backup car and essentially wiped out the pole position he'd earned Sunday. Earnhardt's No. 88 Chevrolet will drop to the rear for the green flag in Sunday's 53rd running of The Great American Race.

NASCAR's most popular driver was drafting behind Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson when their two-car train approached the slower cars of Robby Gordon and David Gilliland. As Gordon and Gilliland drifted high, Johnson and Earnhardt both lifted off the accelerator, and the Toyota of Martin Truex Jr. tagged Earnhardt from behind.

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"You've got to pay attention out there," said Earnhardt, seemingly blaming Gordon and Gilliland. "If you're going to come out here and race, you've got to pay attention. We came up running on some guys that didn't have their heads on straight and got in an accident."

The damage meant backup cars for both Truex and Earnhardt, who seemed more disconsolate about having elected to practice. Because he had qualified on pole, Earnhardt will be forced to start from the rear of the Daytona 500 regardless of his finish in Thursday's qualifying race. Under NASCAR rules, anyone who goes to a backup after qualifying must start from the rear, and only Earnhardt and teammate Jeff Gordon were considered to have "qualified" Sunday because only the top two positions are locked.

"We've got plenty of race cars," Earnhardt said. "I ain't worrying about how fast we'll be. We'll be fine. It never feels good tearing them up. I'm just disappointed in myself. I didn't feel good about being out there practicing. I didn't think I needed to be out there practicing. I just had a bad feeling about it."

The bad vibes actually might have started yesterday when co-host Tony Kornheiser intimated on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption that NASCAR had helped Earnhardt turn the fastest lap in qualifying. Kornheiser said a longtime NASCAR reporter told him there was a 60% chance that Earnhardt's car might not be legal.

"There are people in and around the NASCAR world, not just drivers but people who cover the sport, who are winking at this one," Kornheiser said. "Who are wondering if this wasn't a setup because it's the pole position."

The reporter was The Washington Post's Liz Clarke, who covered NASCAR for more than a decade for four newspapers and also wrote a book about the sport.

Earlier Tuesday, Clarke had appeared on Kornheiser's ESPN 980 radio show in Washington. During a discussion about Earnhardt's pole position, Clarke said, "people who covered racing for a long time, a lot were just laughing when they heard Junior won the pole because of the rich NASCAR tradition of ginning up storylines and outcomes. There's a lot of questions still about Richard Petty's 200th win, which came the day Ronald Reagan was there. Everything Americana happened to fall into place that particular day."

Noting that PTI does a segment called "Odds" in which situations are assigned a 1-100 percentage, Kornheisesr asked Clarke, "what are the odds that NASCAR rigged this" so Earnhardt would start first?

"I'd say better than 60%," Clarke said. "I'm trying to think, 'Will I regret saying that?' No, it's more likely than not. But he drives for the best, best team with the best cars and smartest mechanics. This is an awesome team. He's had the best equipment."

During a Wednesday morning appearance on Sirius NASCAR Radio, Clarke said she regretted assigning a percentage to such a scenario.

Curiously, Kornheiser had a different take on the Earnhardt situation earlier in Tuesday's radio show during an interview with Pardon the Interruption staffer Matt Kelliher. Discussing possible topics for the program that night, Kelliher suggested NASCAR had given Earnhardt a free pass on the pole.

"It certainly would be a wonderful way to script it, and he has been a terrible driver of late," Kornheiser replied. "But I'd rather believe he won it on his own, and he had extra adrenaline going as well."

Kornheiser's comments didn't go over so well with some of ESPN's NASCAR staff during a news conference Wednesday.

"It pisses me off that somebody thinks that from being inside and knowing how hard that myself and a lot of others that I worked around worked on our race cars," said analyst Dale Jarrett, also the 1999 champion. "All you have to do is look around throughout the history of the sport at crazy things that happened. You get in a wreck with somebody one week, and the next week you qualify side-by-side and you're in a truck riding around the track together. Did NASCAR plan that? Why hell no.

"Dale Earnhardt Jr. is in a very good race car. He's always run well here given good equipment. He's my pick to win this race. Was it because it's the 10th anniversary of his father's death? Well no, it doesn't have anything to do with that. It aggravates you that that perception is out there. We have a very good sport with a lot of integrity out there and to have it questioned is unfortunate."

Said analyst Andy Petree, former crew chief for seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt: "We're hearing opinions of people who really have no idea. This is my 30th Daytona 500 that I've come down to. I have spent a career trying to get an advantage under the hood or anywhere I can with that car. I can tell you I've never, ever in my life seen anybody get the call to have something done to their car. These guys are too smart in the garage. You're working right next to every team in there. If I saw something on somebody else's car that I thought wasn't right, I'm going to be the first one to make sure somebody knows about it."

ESPN vice president of motorsports Rich Feinberg said, "that's a show of opinion, and they are entitled to their opinion. And I can tell you for sure that ESPN doesn't agree with his opinion yesterday, but that's the nature of commentary, and not all the time are we going to get a rosy picture when people are offering their opinions."

After Nationwide practice Wednesday, Earnhardt told reporters Kornheiser's comments didn't bother him because "those two guys that do that show don't know much about racing."

Kornheiser was contrite about his NASCAR comments during Wednesday's PTI show. The featured interview was five-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who jokingly invited Kornheiser to a NASCAR race "to keep you from saying stupid things."

"I think Tony Kornheiser quickly realized his limitations when it came to racing," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said. "Our fans and drivers deserve better. There is no more open inspection process and garage in all of racing than in NASCAR."