NASCAR at Charlotte: Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashes in practice, switches to backup car

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be in a backup car the remainder of the race weekend after crashing in practice Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Moments after posting the third-fastest speed in the opening minutes of Cup Series practice, Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Earnhardt got loose entering Turn 4 and slid up the track where he struck the outside wall. The contact heavily damaged the No. 88 Chevrolet and forced his Hendrick Motorsports team to switch to a backup car for the remainder of the race weekend. He said the PJ1 substance that officials had applied to the upper groove to provide additional traction actually had the opposite effect, causing him to lose control.

The incident occurred in Friday’s lone practice session, with two practice rounds planned on Saturday in preparation for the Bank of America 500 Sunday afternoon.

“I got up into that stuff they sprayed down and it just shot up into the world,” Earnhardt told NBCSN. “We were out there running laps and got the rights [tires] into that stuff and the car just went into the fence, like it blew a right front tire.

“Just disappointing, man. That stuff out there on the track, it ain’t good right now. I wouldn’t touch it. I don’t even know why they sprayed it down because we run this race in the daytime. It ain’t like we needed any help to get the top working in. That was more to help this place at night. If you can’t even run in it without plowing into the fence, what good is it?”

Earnhardt wasn’t the only driver to have an encounter with the Turn 4 wall. Later during the 85-minute session, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch each had separate incidents where they made contact with the wall, though Keselowski’s Ford and Busch’s Toyota did not suffer considerable damage.

Kyle Larson topped practice with a best-single lap speed of 192.082 mph.