Dale Earnhardt Jr. won't race favorite car 'Amelia' again

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. won't race "Amelia" again.

Earnhardt's favorite car, which he drove to wins at both Talladega and Daytona in 2015, will rest on his property in the woods with a collection of torn-up race cars he has collected from his team and others over the years.

Earnhardt said Tuesday that the car, which he also drove to finishes of second and third in the other two points events, was damaged beyond repair in two accidents on Sunday at Talladega.

"Amelia's done," Earnhardt said of the car, which he named after Amelia Earhart.

Speaking during a promotional tour in his role as executive producer for a miniseries on the France family's creation and oversight of NASCAR that was produced by NASCAR and CMT, Earnhardt acknowledged that the car did not race all that well at Daytona and Talladega this year, as he spun out on his own in both events. Earnhardt had driven the car to victory in the qualifying race four days before the 2016 Daytona 500 -- Earnhardt also won a Daytona 500 qualifying race with Amelia in 2015 -- so it certainly was still fast.

"Not that that car got obsolete or that is the reason why I keep spinning out in it, but we typically wouldn't keep bringing a car back for that long a period of time," Earnhardt said. "We would have built a new car by now. But we really thought it could keep continuing. It's probably best that we go ahead and build a new car."

As far as the wrecks Sunday, Earnhardt said the threat of rain throughout the race forced drivers to race with greater intensity and that that likely added to the number of crashes. He said drivers are not in an uproar over two cars getting upside-down.

"One thing I think is true is none of us know what we would do to change it, and I don't think anybody in the sport does," Earnhardt said. "We've altered the package over the years a hundred different teams and never really seen a big, big difference in the type of racing we see there.

"We might go back and have one accident in the fall and go back again next spring and tear them all up again. You just never know until you get there and go to the race."