Get out your checkbook, Junior...

I watched this incident, and it obviously was not premeditated. In the celebration in victory lane, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was asked a really dumb question, something like "What does it mean to be a five-time winner here at Talledega?"

Junior didn't have his internal censors on and without thinking replied, "Right now it don't mean shit . . ." because he's concentrating on the championship race.

That it was broadcast over NBC is more NBC's fault than Jr.'s. They should have learned from CBS' Boobgate (which WAS premeditated) to put a five or seven-second tape delay in.

Guys, especially athletes, swear sometimes. There's no malicious intent in it. It just comes out.

NBC should have planned for that.