LIVE BLOG: Texas Motor Speedway

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That was the sound of TVs turning off (radios too, since it's Monday) just 12 laps into the Duck COmmander 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed out of the race on that lap, due to a simple miscalculation.

"Just didn't see the grass," he said. "Didn't know the grass was down there. With the way the A-post is on these cars you can't really see that good to that angle. I just didn't have a good visual of where the apron and the grass was and got down in there pretty good. You can't run through there the way they have these cars on the ground like that.  

"Just a mistake on my part. I just didn't know I was that close to the grass, and made a mistake."

Earnhardt had a run on Arix Almirola off Turn 4 and the car of Kyle Larson was just ahead. Almirola juked left to line up under Larson, and Junior ducked even farther left to do the same...right into the grass.

"I thought I was taking a decent line through the dogleg," he said. "We were going low around the No. 42 (Kyle Larson) so I was lower than normal and just misjudged it. It tears the car up pretty good when you run through the grass."

The impact knocked the splitter, the left front fender and more off the car, dragged the oil line off and set the car afire. HE finally stopped it in Turn 2 and bailed out. 

Just a few laps later, once they got to racing again, Kevin Harvick popped a Hendrick power plant in his No. 4 Chevrolet, exiting the race as well.

“Something happened with the engine right after that restart," Harvick said. "The Jimmy John’s Chevrolet SS was really fast. It’s frustrating. I don’t know what else I can say. I didn’t get any indication that anything was going wrong. Hendrick engines are among the fastest and most reliable engines in the garage. We’ll take it back to the shop and figure out what happened. But that’s a disappointing end to the day.”