Dale Earnhardt Jr. was forced to leave his car mid-race on Friday night as the NASCAR legend’s vehicle caught fire. The 48-year old was racing in the Xfinity Series in Bristol and at one point led the pack before a malfunction in his vehicle forced him to make an untimely exit.
Video from the race shows Earnhardt Jr. telling his crew that there was a fire in his car, and smoke could be seen coming out of the car as well. The driver then pulled the car over before being helped out by crew members of another team.
‘Somehow or another the shifter tunnel caught on fire. I saw some smoke in the car and I smelt it, and I was like ‘hopefully that’s not me.’ But that last lap I saw a big fireball down in the tunnel in the car, and I felt it obviously, my uniform was burning up. And I was like, ‘I can’t keep going. I gotta stop.’
‘I hate it. We were gonna finish in the top 10, maybe top five, we had a shot of winning it if the car was gonna run good at the end. But, try not to mess nobody’s night up at the same time, so it was hard. But I had fun.’ Earnhardt Jr. last raced in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2017. And usually when you stop the fires get bigger, so I pulled over by the pit stall, and some of them guys were pretty alert and they helped me out.
