by Kenny Wallace, FOX Sports Net

Updated: July 27, 2004, 10:55 PM EST

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets adjusted before taking practice laps on Saturday (Rusty Jarrett / Getty Images)

He had his drink tube on the left side of his neck because, in road racing, they've got to get in and out of the car. The drink tube got so hot that it melted against his neck. That's incredibly painful.

The other thing that happened was he was wearing his firesuit, fire shoes and fire helmet. But the ambient heat was so hot at the top of his legs that it literally gave him a second-degree burn basically like from a suntan.

Now he could have combat all of this by wearing a headsock. The headsock would have covered the neck area, and he could have been wearing what we call a helmet skirt that goes around the bottom of the helmet and that would have prevented the plastic tube from sticking to his neck.

He was not wearing his fire-retardant underwear. He could have been wearing this underneath his firesuit. He was not. So if he would have been wearing this, he wouldn't have gotten that baked suntan on top of his legs.

Now this is what's interesting. He was wearing his fire-retardant on the upper chest area. He did have that on, and he didn't have anything happen up there.

So he said those two things — the tube sticking to his neck and then the big suntan to the top of the legs — are what's keeping him out of the car this week.