Filed Under » racing

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s struggles continued yesterday when he couldn't find the keys to his NASCAR, which prompted a late start in the Brickyard 400 and a last-place finish.

"Ah, man. I really need to get more organized," said Earnhardt. "I can't keep misplacing my keys. This is humiliating."

The driver's key is on the same key ring — a bottle opener — as his house key and his bonus cards for CVS Pharmacy and Best Buy. They were eventually found under a newspaper on the top of the tollet tank in the garage bathroom. But by that time Earnhardt was already several minutes late and couldn't make up the gap.

"This isn't the first time this has happened, but usually I find my keys a lot quicker," he said. "I have no idea how they got in the bathroom. They're usually on the key ring by the door or on the table."

A few of Earnhardt's teammates got him a key finder last Christmas, but he hasn't used it.

"I don't see the point," said the driver. "So there's this beeper that goes off on the key ring if I press the button on the finder. But what if I lose the finder? Losing my keys is my problem. So why would I not lose the finder? It makes no sense. Plus, I don't want that stupid thing on my key ring. It's all bulky and looks bad in my pocket."

Earnhardt was also delayed in the race because he had to pick up some dry cleaning before he got going.

Danica Patrick earned one of her best finishes ever at the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday thanks to incessantly nagging her car around the track.

"You have to keep on the car," said Patrick. "My car and my team. They're all worthless and they need to be reminded of that at every opportunity or nothing good will ever happen. I tell my car at least every lap that it's lucky to have me in it and that it's making me look bad."

Patrick started the race the 23rd spot but finished fifth. "And I had to do it almost all by myself," she said. "My car kept being all like: 'Wah! I need gas! I need tires!' It's pathetic. You don't see me asking for that stuff. But do I get credit for that? Pfft. Right. I don't get credit for anything, even though I'm the best driver out here."

Dave Shipley, Patrick's crew chief, admitted that dealing with Patrick can get tiresome. "But, oh God, please don't tell her I said that," Shipley begged. "Please. If she finds out I said something bad about her, I'll be in big trouble. You have no idea."

Other sources close to Patrick say they are not sure how much longer her car can put up with it.

"We all know there are certain rules about how you treat a driver," said an anonymous crew member. "But she better watch herself. If she keeps running her little trap, I think the car is going to snap and crash her into a wall. Not that I think that's okay. But sometimes you have it coming, you know?"

Dale Earnhardt, Jr., still the most popular driver in NASCAR more than a year after his death, is actually not dead, according to reports.

"No, I am not dead," said Earnhardt, Jr. or someone who looked very much like him after finishing in 38th place in Sunday's Banking 500. "I haven't won in 51 races, but I didn't die in a tragic accident last year. That rumor has gotten way out of control. My father is passed, yes. But I am still very much alive, believe it or not."

If that's true, then the millions of NASCAR fans who spend a reported tens of millions of dollars each year on Dale Earnhardt, Jr. products are actually buying the merchandise of one of the worst drivers in the entire sport — perhaps the most overrated figure in sports.

"No … what? Not dead? That's absurd," said diehard Earnhardt, Jr. fan Larry Grant, who has his entire den decorated with memorabilia celebrating Dale, Jr. and his father, Dale Earnhardt, Sr. "Of course he's dead. Why would I have all of these plastic cups of someone you claim is a scrub driver and has been for years? I may as well just start using my overtime pay to buy Joe Nemeshek products instead."

This possible Earnhardt, Jr. look-alike insists that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. did not die in a crash last season resembling the one that took his father at the 2001 Daytona 500.

"I crashed a few times, yes. Maybe that's the cause of the confusion," he says. "But those crashes were not fatal and they only happened because, well … driving a car is never something that I've been very good at. It was sort of the family business so I felt obligated to do it. But I much prefer public transportation."

Grant, the diehard with the shrine in his den to the fallen Earnhardts, says that if it is confirmed that Dale, Jr. is still alive and merely is a poor driver with a beneficial name and powerful marketing, he will make a change.

"I will start collecting Danica Patrick stuff," he said. "She was awesome. It's a shame she died."