When Dale Earnhardt Jr. spun out at the end of the race last Sunday at Martinsville I was very disappointed. Worst of all, I had no one to blame except Junior himself. In a post-race interview he took responsibility for his mistake. Noble, but irritating. I don’t want to see him mess up; there is a Championship at stake after all. I’m just being honest, which isn’t to say that I don’t get that he’s a human being, he’s not Superman.

Anytime anything happens to Dale Jr., good or bad, the media always turn to his large fan base. They’ll usually say something along the lines of something like this from the NASCAR SceneDaily Blog:

The sea of red shirts, caps and jackets decorating the Martinsville grandstands made a collective slump as smoke boiled from the No. 8’s tires and his run toward an unlikely victory suddenly ended.

Which bugs me too… Why? Because I’d much rather have a favorite driver that only 5 people liked instead of 5 million. Plus I like Junior because he seems like a good guy, someone you’d… uhm… I’m not going into this. Anytime anyone tries to explain why they like someone they’ve never met it starts to sound really … weird.

So, moving on… Going into the race at Atlanta this weekend, Junior has had one win and eight top ten finishes out of the last 14 races there, so he’s got a good chance of having an excellent finish.