Earnhardt Jr. evolving into championship material
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Dale Earnhardt finished seventh after winning the NAPA 500 pole last weekend.
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By Marty Smith, Turner Sports Interactive
November 19, 2001
5:24 PM EST (2224 GMT)
CONCORD, N.C. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. was born with a champion's blood coursing through his veins, molded with a champion's indomitable psyche, filled with a champion's fortitude and tenaciousness.
He's finally starting to realize it 27 years later.
With less than one week remaining in Junior's second full NASCAR Winston Cup Series season, he has emerged as a lead contender for the 2002 crown -- both by his performance in the race car and his actions away from it.
A legendary partier, Junior has toned down the festivities in an effort to focus more energy in bettering himself as a racer and overall leader at Dale Earnhardt Inc. The results are obvious.
The No. 8 Chevrolet is consistently fast, running up front, contending for wins. Sure, Junior is accustomed to winning -- 13 Busch races and two championships in two years ain't so shabby -- but this isn't the Busch Series.
At the pinnacle, consistency is vital in achieving overall success -- a truth Junior is all too well aware of.
"I don't know if we're really the guys to beat," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I just think we might be able to put ourselves in the mix -- the mix being mainly where we are now. The top-10 is pretty hard fought throughout the year. I consider it a pretty big challenge to be in the top-10 at this point in the year.
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All of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s wins in 2001 have come in the second half.
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"If you cut the season in half, the second half of the year we're a top five team, so maybe if we start off the beginning of next year we'll be in the top five all year."
That's been an issue in the past. During the two Busch Series championship seasons, Junior failed to win a race until the middle stages of each year. Last year, his first Winston Cup Series win came rather early -- at Texas in the season's seventh race -- but was plagued with inconsistency throughout the year.
The trend continued into this season. Following a runner-up finish in the season opener at Daytona, he suffered setbacks in the following few races. He had a top five car at Rockingham but crashed on the first lap and finished 43rd.
Ditto for Las Vegas, only this time the setback came courtesy of the catch can, which was left in the car on a pit stop. He finished 23rd. Then it was 15th at Atlanta, 34th at Darlington and 31st at Bristol. After posting four top-10s over the next five weeks, he again suffered a string of several disappointments.
Then he won the Pepsi 400 at Daytona. Since then, it's been peachy keen in Kannapolis, N.C., and the Bud boys are poised to make a run at the 2002 Winston Cup championship.
"I've always been a slow starter at the beginning of each year. In Late Models and in the Busch Series I was always real slow in the first five, six, seven races getting going and that's cost me some track championships at Myrtle Beach and stuff like that," Junior said. "Even though we've won the Busch championships, it took us one third of the year to win the first race every year.
"Like last year, we were a real good team the last three-quarters of the season, but the first quarter we had horrible finishes. So if we could come outta the box running really good, just finish in the top 15, we might be able to do something cool."
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Dale Jr. celebrates his big win at Talladega. It was his second restrictor-plate win in a row.
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Junior has long made noise with his off-track persona. The Dale Jr. phenomenon has reached celebrity status, a welcomed privilege but one that can quickly wear a guy down mentally and physically. It did so last year, so Junior went to work with publicist Jade Gurss to alter his schedule of commitments.
More team time. More strategic accommodation of others.
"The sport's really become a lot more corporate-minded, and a lot times that gets in the way of on-track performance and being a race car driver," Junior said. "So when you need to buckle-down and concentrate on something, you need to be thinking just about race cars.
"I found out finally that I had to have enough authority, or what not, to have some control of that. I just tried to make it as convenient as I could without upsetting nobody."
Sometimes you have to be willing to stoke the proverbial coals in order to achieve greatness.
Just look at Junior's family tree -- it's deeply rooted in championship soil.
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