Earnhardt didn't leave his heart in San Francisco

SONOMA, Calif. (AP) -Dale Earnhardt Jr. is most definitely not on the list of drivers who love NASCAR's annual visit to wine country.

Earnhardt couldn't think of a worse track than Infineon Raceway to visit a week after winning his first race.

"Never liked coming here," he said. "Don't like the track. It's not a fun track to compete on. It's fun to go around it and goof off and raise a little bit of hell, but I don't like being in competition on it."

Earnhardt's dislike for Infineon is probably based on past results. He's never been successful on the road course, failing to notch a single top 10 in eight previous starts. His best finish was 11th, twice, and he's only led a lap in one race here.

He blames his past failures on the track.

"It's impossible to pass. Where do you pass? There's a couple braking zones, but that's about it," he said. "You just wait on people to screw up."

So it's not exactly the place Earnhardt wanted to celebrate after snapping his 76-race winless streak last Sunday in Michigan. In addition to his on-track struggles, Earnhardt was badly burned in a fire when he crashed here practicing for a sports car race in 2004.

It's left him with an overall disdain and a seemingly defeated attitude the moment he arrives. He'll start 15th on Sunday.

"I'm gonna screw up," he said. "Trust me, I'll screw it up. I'm not very good at road racing, so we just try to do the best we can. I'm just trying to get through the weekend."

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THANKS FOR THE HELP: As a master road course racer, Boris Said is often called on to help NASCAR's full-time drivers prepare for the two road course events on the annual schedule.

The list of drivers he's helped in Sunday's race is at 18, including pole-sitter Kasey Kahne.

"I enjoyed working with him," Kahne said. "He taught me a lot of things and taught me how to go faster. We rode a two-seater together - he rode with me and I rode with him. I watched him and then he picked my stuff apart, what I was doing good and what I was doing bad. You can learn a lot from a guy like that."