| Top | Blog | Sport |

Photo by Steve Langley

Dale Earnhardt Jr. had better be stepping it up a bit, or history is going to repeat itself and he won’t be making the trip to the banquet in Las Vegas.

His year has not gotten off to a great start for one reason or another, but mostly simple mistakes in the pits lately have been the cause of his bad finishes. Bad pit stops, loose lug nuts, missing his pit stall… all have led to many of the problems with the finishes that could have been much better.

In ten races, Dale Jr. has only three top tens and one top five for the season. He’s currently 18th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup points, after loosing three spots last week in Richmond.

Mark Martin had a great weekend going for him, in the top with practice speeds, winning the pole, and running up front during most of the race. Then, the unexpected happened, hurtling his car into turn one at the Atlanta Motor Speedway during the Kobalt Tools 500 race, his car took a slide into the outside retaining wall that left his car crippled from the damage sustained when he backed his car hard into it at top speed.