That’s It for Earnhardt Jr.

California Speedway plays no favorites when it comes to NASCAR’s poster boy.

The speedway, a nemesis of Dale Earnhardt Jr., polished off the Nextel Cup’s most popular driver at the Sony HD 500 on Sunday to end Junior’s chances of qualifying for the series’ 10-race playoffs.

Earnhardt finished 38th, three better than he qualified, after his Budweiser Chevrolet’s engine expired, finishing any chance he had of running a meaningful race the rest of the season.

All that is left is racing for pride.

With one race remaining at Richmond, Va., before the “Chase for the Championship,” Earnhardt is 18th in the standings and trails 10th-place Jamie McMurray by 193 points. The most points a driver can make up on another driver is 154.

Earnhardt led two caution laps, 201 and 202 of the 250-lap race around the two-mile oval, but they were under caution because he pitted later than the leaders. He was running 34th when his night ended. Before the pit stop, he had been 29th.

The blowup, he said, came without warning, other than it ran like syrup. “It was a dog to begin with,” he said.

It was only the fifth race Earnhardt led this season. He has only one victory, and only nine top-10 finishes this season. He has used three crew chiefs.

California Speedway was a fitting site for Earnhardt’s season of frustration to come full circle. He started 40th and finished 32nd at the February race, and this one was the fifth time in eight career races that he has finished 19th or worse. It was also the site of his worst crash, in 2002, in which he suffered a concussion.

“We just had a bad night tonight,” Earnhardt said. “We struggled all year. I’m surprised y’all are surprised.”

With 11 races remaining, he said he didn’t want to turn it into an R&D; campaign for next year. “I don’t want to run any worse than I’m running,” he said.

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Orange native and NASCAR driver Robby Gordon was pulled over by San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies Sunday morning for driving a race car into work.

Gordon drove a Baja-type buggy from his shop in Anaheim to California Speedway. The Baja 1000 winner’s ride had the vanity license plate “ONE BAJA,” with shocks three feet long and four monstrous headlamps on the roof, Red Bull sponsorship on the hood and signage from his race shop on the side panel.

“They saw me drive it in the gate,” Gordon said. “It’s a race car. I didn’t speed, I didn’t get a ticket, I didn’t do anything wrong. It was like, ‘How can this be real?’

“He goes, ‘I know who you are, I don’t care what you do. I just want to see your driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance.’ ”

“I didn’t get in trouble, so that’s a good thing. It’s the one time I’m innocent.”

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Joe Nemechek finished 10th and remained alive for the Chase -- the last driver eligible at 16th.

“The results don’t show how good we’ve run this year, as far as wins go, top 5s,” Nemechek said of his U.S. Army Chevrolet. “Quite a few times this year we’ve been knocking on the door and something happened to us, including here to start the season.”

In February at California, Nemechek led 63 laps but blew an engine while leading and finished 39th. He was running fifth in Atlanta two races later, only to finish 35th after another engine meltdown. Had he simply finished in the top 10 in those two races, he would be no worse than eighth in the Chase.

Another among the dozen races Nemechek ran well only to be disappointed was the Coca-Cola 600; he led with eight laps to go, only to have a flat after running over debris. He finished 18th.

With a little luck, Nemechek said, “We’d be locked in.”