Race favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. worked his way through traffic and was putting himself in position to challenge for the win in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Daytona 500 when disaster struck.
Earnhardt was running in the outside line at Daytona International Speedway when his car snapped loose. The car, which Junior famously named Amelia, streaked across the inside line and into the retaining wall in Turn 4 on Lap 170 at the track. It bounced off the wall, taking heavy front-end damage, before coming to rest on the grass.
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"It caught me by surprise there," he said. "I was trying to side draft the guy beside me and boy it pinned the right front, all the downforce there … We were starting to move forward, getting aggressive, and just lost it."
Junior's damaged car (Fox Sports via Twitter)
Earnhardt, who won his Can-Am Duel qualifying race on Thursday night, climbed from his car after the accident. His teammate, pole-sitter Chase Elliott, had already endured a crash that heavily damaged his car as well.
All of #JrNation right about now:#NASCAR #DaytonaDay #DAYTONA500 pic.twitter.com/q3bgjLYTZr
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Earnhardt won the Daytona 500 in 2004 and 2014.