Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a bad day at Daytona...and winds up in a controversial crash with Brian Vickers that took out dominant Kyle Busch

  By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

  DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.
  The new season is only hours old and already there's a feud brewing – between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brian Vickers.
  And Kyle Busch, who dominated much of Sunday's Daytona 500, inadvertently got caught up in that spat and was knocked out the sport's biggest race.
  While Vickers blamed Earnhardt and Earnhardt blamed Vickers, Busch was irate with both, who were a lap down to the field at that point in the season-opener.
   Busch was not happy: "They made their bad day our bad day……two guys a lap down, fighting over nothing…
  "Some guys were having bad days and not doing their best out there.
   "We were so, so strong, led all those laps. I was just playing with my teammate (Denny Hamlin) and having a great time."
   Frustration? "This is about a 15 on a 10-scale," Busch griped. "I don't even know what they were fighting for (on the inside lane), because the outside line was coming. Those cars just should have sat there and waited and gotten back in line when they could.
   "It was really uncalled for, to have two lapped cars racing each other and bumping each other like that.
   "It cost the winning car the chance to win the race."
   Busch pointed to the pit road mistake that Earnhardt made just moments earlier which precipitated the incident.   
   The crash came on a restart with 175 miles to go, after Earnhardt had been penalized one lap by NASCAR for making a yellow flag pit stop with his right-front tire out of the pit box. Earnhardt was trying to charge up through the field and was battling Vickers for the 'Lucky Dog' spot on the track -- to get a lap back.
   Earnhardt made a bid to pass Vickers on the inside on the backstretch, but Vickers threw a block – legal, and not really unusual --- on Earnhardt.
    But Earnhardt didn't back off, instead hitting Vickers in the left-rear quarterpanel and turning him up into the thick of the pack. The two men were running very close to the front.
   Vickers was knocked out of the race in the crash, but Earnhardt managed to keep his car running, though still a lap down at that point. NASCAR apparently debated whether or not penalize Earnhardt again, but no penalty was called.
  "We're racing for the Lucky Dog, and I beat him to the yellow (out of bounds) line," Vickers said. "And he just turned us.
   "Typically NASCAR penalizes somebody for an incident like that. I think Jason Leffler was penalized five laps for doing the same thing (in Saturday's Nationwide race).
   "But I guess NASCAR won't penalize him.
   "That's dangerous, to wreck somebody intentionally in front of the entire field. But apparently he wanted a caution pretty bad.
   "He hit me the time on the way down (as Vickers first moved down to block), which is fine…we all do that.
   "Then he came back up and just hooked me in the left rear."
   Moments later, after the yellow came out for a crash involving Jeff Burton and Paul Menard, Earnhardt got the Lucky Dog and was put back on the lead lap.
   Earnhardt finished 27th.
   Earnhardt didn't take Vickers' criticism lightly: "I got a run on him, he saw me coming. I went to the inside. I didn't make any late move or any surprise.  And he moved to blocked me, and pushed me down to the grass.
  "He drove me down almost into the grass, and I didn’t have much control of my car after that."
    And Earnhardt wasn't happy with the NASCAR penalty that put him a lap down in the first place.
   "I think it's time we reevaluate that rule," Earnhardt said. "My tire was only an inch on the line.
   "But I put a lot of pressure on myself to get up there and lead laps. I can't blame anybody but myself."