And now, Dale Jr.'s Take:

  

  
Great guy, good equipment, solid team, but lousy luck? What to make of Dale Earnhardt Jr.? (Photo:Getty Images for NASCAR)
  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net

   FORT WORTH, Texas
   Okay, Junior. What happened this time?
   While teammate Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson were running 1-2 at the finish of Sunday's Texas 500, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was mired back in 20th. And this after having the lead late.
   So what's Junior's take?
   Was it that bump from Kyle Busch, who was trying to get around Earnhardt and make up one of his lost laps?
   Nope, Earnhardt said.
   Well, maybe it was something that happened earlier when he rubbed the wall.
   Nope, Earnhardt said.
    "No, it was fine. Nothing was really wrong with the car after we hit the wall. It was frustrating at the time but, I was running real, real hard all day. Trying to hard and run well, and just got in to the wall down there in the middle of one and two. The car jumped sideways. Those cars built pretty tough. It didn’t bend anything in the car. We just running real hard there, trying to get the best finish we could there. Just got us in there a little deep and got in the fence. My mistake.”
    Maybe it was another pit miscue? Again Earnhardt missed his pits during a stop and had to come back in. 
    Nope, Earnhardt said.
    "That wasn’t nothing. We were already last in line on the lead lap. We come down pit road and all the lapped cars were in their stalls and didn’t want to get t-boned by one of them. I didn’t get it in the stall so we just went around and came back in, that time pit road was empty."
    So it was just another bum afternoon at the track?
   The contrast between Earnhardt and Gordon and Johnson is becoming ever more stark.  
   What needs to happen for Earnhardt and his guys to get better?
   "I don't know, you tell me," Earnhardt replied. "We were running pretty good all day, we were really fast.
   "We just started way back there, and you can't pass.
    "You've got to start where you've got to finish, you know.
    "You've got to start up front, or you won't finish there."
   Earnhardt started 20th here and finished 20th.
   So Earnhardt obviously needs to qualify better.
   So far this season he's started 14th, 35th, 31st, 20th, 34th , 19th and  20th.
   "We've been thinking about that too," Earnhardt says. "We've been working toward showing up in qualifying trim.
    "We used to show up in race trim and run a half-hour in that first Friday practice. Now we're just going to show up in qualifying trim for a while and try to get better.
   "Our teammates always did it, and I wondered why we never did. So we're doing what they're doing.
     "Really, it's so challenging and so hard to pass…especially at a place like this. Starting up front really helps; the cars drive a lot better when they're up in clean air.
     "The old car was hard to pass with…but to me the COT has a lot of pluses and it can put on a great race.  I think it's a great race car for short tracks. 
    "We put on some really good races at those tracks…but we keep cutting them from the schedule. 
   "We keep racing at every 1-1/2-mile we can produce in a big market -- and we keep getting the same kind of racing. 
    "This car has a lot of limitations on its ability to create downforce, to engineer any downforce into it.
    "We (as a sport) haven't made what I feel is an assertive effort to make the car a better race car and make it race better. 
    "I feel it's the same car we started with, from the very beginning…in 2007.  That's the same car we're running today.
    "I feel we could do a better job of being more creative and more open-minded toward producing a car that was going to race better.
    "But everybody has a different opinion on what creates that -- whether it's front downforce, more motor, different tires, bigger tires.
     "I guarantee you there's not a driver, or a guy that works with NASCAR, that wouldn't like the racing to be better. We all would. 
    "Is it even possible to create that? 
    "As long as we're all racing with the knowledge and the experience and the technology we have, we're all going to be pretty close. 
    "If we're all pretty close, and you can't really do anything to affect how the wind changes these cars and how people get aero-tight, it's going to be hard to pass a guy."
    And so what's the sport's most popular driver going to do during the Easter Break?
    "I'm going to raise a little hell… and I'm going to go to Whiskey River…and I'm going to go on vacation and take it easy, man."