Earnhardt Jr. continues late-season push

By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com
November 19, 2001
5:22 PM EST (2222 GMT)

ATLANTA -- In his first full year as a Winston Cup driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won twice and finished 16th in points. A successful season by many standards, but Junior was widely criticized for his loss of focus late in the season.

What a difference a year makes.

With a hard-fought seventh-place finish Sunday, Earnhardt continued a late-season push that has given him two wins and three other top-10 finishes in the last 10 races. In fact, until falling out of contention with about 20 laps remaining, Earnhardt was the most dominant car on the track, leading 171 of 325 laps.

EMPLOYMENT LINE

Sunday was a fairly respectable day for guys looking for work next year. Kevin Lepage continued his solid performance in the No. 7 car, running in the top 10 for much of the day before finishing 19th. "We were 10th taking the white flag," Lepage said, "and the car ran out of gas."

Stacy Compton, driver for a team -- No. 92 -- that may well not exist in 2002, finished 18th. Robert Pressley, out as the driver of the No. 77 car next year, rose to as high as fifth before finishing 21st.

Sunday was not, however, a very good day for dreamers.

Carl Long was sent spinning into the wall on lap 16 and finished last. Lance Hooper, serving as a guinea pig for Andy Petree Racing and running a single engine through qualifying and the race, blew the engine on lap 107 and finished 42nd. Hermie Sadler managed to do better, but not much: he finished 37th.

ON THE MOVE

*In his first race with Bill Davis Racing, Hut Stricklin finished 11th, his second-best finish of the year.

*Mike Wallace continues to make life difficult for Roger Penske. With his 13th-place finish Sunday, his third impressive performance in seven races in relief of the dismissed Jeremy Mayfield, Wallace raises the heat even more on Penske, who has been rumored to be thinking of closing the team entirely.

SPEED LIMIT

As a result of the pit-road accident at Homestead in which four crew members were injured, NASCAR announced Friday that it had extended the pit-road speed limit (generally, 45 miles per hour) another 150 feet.

A NASCAR official said that the sanctioning body wasn't finished making changes to the rules relating to pit road but wouldn't elaborate.

Nine teams that hadn't previously required its pit crews to wear helmets did so Sunday.

AND FINALLY ...

For the first four months of the year, the question was "What's wrong with Jeff Burton?" Well, in the last two months, it could well be "What's gotten into Jeff Burton?" Sunday's 10th-place finish was Burton's sixth top-10 finish in his last seven races.

Burton's teammate, Mark Martin, also has suffered his share of questions this year. Well, those questions remain: Martin's best finish in the last four races was a 19th at Phoenix. Martin, winless for the first time since 1996, finished 22nd.