Dale Jr. still hopes to race

Nothing good can come out of Dale Jr. going from the booth to the race car once per year, especially when injured.

A close call in a plane crash isn't stopping Dale Earnhardt Jr. from going ahead with his plans to get behind the wheel for next week's Xfinity race at Darlington Raceway.

Earnhardt, 44, says he'll need to get healthy first and tweeted that his "lower back is bruised up real bad" from the Thursday accident.

"Lots of swelling and I just need that to go down and the pain to chill out," he tweeted. "I been treating the area every day solely to get well to race."

Earnhardt, his wife Amy, their daughter Ilsa, their dog and two pilots got out of their plane without serious injury after it bounced on a hard landing at Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Tennessee, slid off the runway, went through a fence and caught fire.