NASCAR notes: Earnhardt Jr. has another inconsistent day

BROOKLYN, Mich. — All Dale Earnhardt Jr. could do was shake his head and lament what might have been.

The winner of the June race at Michigan International Speedway, appeared on the way to a top-five finish despite an ill-handling car in Sunday’s 3M Performance 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race. But his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet bounced off the wall on a late restart and Earnhardt wound up a disappointing 23rd.

“Yeah, I can drive ‘em, man, they’re just hard to drive like that all day,” he said, laughing. “I ran fifth all day and maybe better than that at some parts of the race, and I’m a good enough driver. I should have finished somewhere around there with that car.”

Earnhardt, who has only that one win this season, has been consistent and is still fourth in the season points despite failing to contend for wins most of the year. Sunday was typical, with Earnhardt leading early in the race, then trying to keep the other leaders in sight as he dealt with a very loose race car.

“It’s been the same old story,” he said. “We show up fast, but we can’t put a whole race together. So we’ve got to do some homework. We’ve got to science it out and figure out what the heck is going on, because we are sure fast when that race starts.

“But I’ve been like that my whole career.”

CRASH VICTIMS: Teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon couldn’t stay out of each other’s way Sunday and it wound up costing both of them.

On lap 91 of the 200-lap race, Johnson, the two-time reigning Cup champion, bounced off the car driven by two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart and banged off four-time series champion Gordon. All three were running in the top 15 at the time.

Johnson had to pit almost immediately with a cut tire, costing him a lap he didn’t make up until late in the race. He did make up some ground, but slid off the track on the final lap and wound up 17th.

Gordon went on after the accident, but eventually cut down a tire and slammed into the wall, sending him to the garage for lengthy repairs. He wound up 42nd in the 43-car field.

Stewart had no damage and went on to finish 12th.

“Originally, I thought that I ran right into Jimmie,” Gordon said. “My spotter didn’t say anything until the last second. He said two cars on the outside instead of three-wide. Ultimately we’re responsible.”

But that wasn’t Gordon’s only disappointment Sunday.

“Our pit stops have been just terrible today,” he said. “We finally got an awesome race car and we just didn’t have the total package today. It’s very disappointing. It’s kind of been the way our season’s gone. We get the pit stops awesome and we can’t get the car right. What are you going to do?”

Gordon, who fell from sixth to ninth in the points, added, “I’m relieved because we’ve been going (in) every week, going, ‘Well, we can’t take too big of a risk, but we got to push hard enough.” Now we just don’t worry about anything. We can just drive as hard as we can, do anything we possibly can and just go all out … and see where we end up. That’s all we can do.”

UNHAPPY CAMPER: Denny Hamlin finished 39th with an engine failure late in the race, then let loose with some frustrated comments about his No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team.

“Loose then tight, loose then tight — we were struggling all afternoon,” Hamlin said. “We had some really good pit stops and had the FedEx Office Toyota running in the top 10 before it all came apart. Everyone on the team is working really hard, we just need consistency.

“We are falling behind getting into the Chase and need to be more consistent … we just can’t seem to get there — every week it’s something. … At this point, we don’t deserve to be in the Chase.”

He might not make it.

With three races remaining until the start of the stock car postseason, Hamlin is 12th, the final spot in the Chase, just 26 points ahead of Clint Bowyer and David Ragan, tied for 13th.

DRIVER CHANGES: The Cup garage continued to buzz Sunday with talk of a few more driver’s seats to be filled.

Although Richard Childress was not yet ready to confirm reports that Casey Mears, who will leave Hendrick Motorsports at the end of this season, will be in a fourth Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet next year, he did say, “I’ll be glad to talk to you about the fourth car next week at Bristol.”

Walt Czarnecki, an official at Penske Racing, said David Stremme is one of several drivers being considered to replace departing Ryan Newman in the No. 12 Dodge in 2009.

“David is certainly in the mix, but there’s a lot of balls still in the air right now,” Czarnecki said. “We hope to have something done in the next week or two, but nothing’s set, yet.”

It is expected that 18-year-old Joey Logano, who already has made nine Nationwide Series starts, with a win and seven top-10s, will make his Cup debut next month at Richmond. Logano reportedly will take over the No. 20 Gibbs entry after two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart leaves at the end of the season to become an owner-driver with Stewart-Haas Racing.

But Joe Gibbs Racing president J.D. Gibbs said Logano’s racing future has not been determined, yet.

“He’ll run some Cup races this year, whether or not he’s running the full thing next year or not,” Gibbs said. “Which ones we’re going to run with him, we’re still in the process of laying out how that works.”

Gibbs also fields Cup cars for Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, meaning the team would be fielding four cars when Logano races in Cup this season.

“We’re just trying to figure out when can we gear up and do that ourselves, internally,” Gibbs said.

SPARK PLUGS: With Carl Edwards winning Sunday, car owner Jack Roush has 19 Michigan wins, including 11 in Cup and four each in Nationwide and trucks. … The winner averaged 140.351 mph in the race slowed by seven cautions for a total of 27 laps. … Australian Marcos Ambrose, coming off a career-best third-place finish a week earlier at Watkins Glen, finished 43rd Sunday with an engine failure after just 17 laps. … Brad Coleman, making his Cup debut, finished 38th, three laps off the pace.