North Carolina

Dale Jr. crashes in snowy weather after helping stranded driver

MOORESVILLE, N.C. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. is warning North Carolina drivers not to venture out into a snowstorm after he slid off the road and hit a tree.

Earnhardt said on his Twitter account Wednesday that he had just used his winch to help a sedan out of a ditch in snowy weather when he himself drove off the road and into a tree.

He wrote: "NC stay off the roads today/tonight. 5 minutes after helping these folks I center punched a pine tree."

A spokesman for Earnhardt, Mike Davis, said that the recently retired NASCAR driver wasn't injured and his pickup truck had only minor damage, if any. Davis said the people Earnhardt helped weren't injured, either.

Earnhardt's crash happened in Mooresville near where his racing team has its shop and offices.

Fans were thankful Earnhardt was OK, but the tweet didn’t come without some NASCAR jokes.

“Jr. did you attempt to turn right? Gets ya every time,” one Twitter user said.

Earnhardt’s accident comes a day after the former NASCAR driver, voted the sport’s most popular driver for 15 consecutive years, announced the day before that he would be covering the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl in the coming weeks as part of his new deal as a contributor to NBC Sports.