Hard Charger: Dale Earnhardt Jr

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Aside from the controversy that's likely to linger, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Sunday ended in picture-perfect fashion.

He won an unprecedented fourth consecutive race at Talladega Superspeedway. He did it in dramatic style, taking the lead of the Aaron's 499 on the final two laps. He also did it to great applause, before an estimated crowd of 150,000 roaring fans.

	Credit: Autostock

But the day didn't dawn quite so swimmingly. At 5:15 a.m., several members of Earnhardt's No. 8 team were trying to rouse co-workers who forgot to set their hotel clocks forward to Daylight Savings Time.

"So we were over there beating on doors trying to get guys up," said Tony Eury Sr., Earnhardt's crew chief. "We were sitting in the van and I told [car chief] Tony Jr., 'Boy, this day started off good, didn't it?' Then we come to the race track and the oil tank's full of water."

That's the oil tank in Earnhardt's race-day engine. Eury Sr. said minor condensation that was thought to be inconsequential on Saturday ballooned into a serious leak once someone cranked the car for the first time Sunday morning. The only real solution was to change engines, which meant starting at the rear of the field, but that was hardly scary considering Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s restrictor-plate dominance.

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"Being third in the points, we just can't afford to take any chances," Eury Sr. said of the Winston Cup standings. "So we changed the motor and decided to go to the rear. All our motors are good at DEI, so we weren't worried about the motor we put in. It was as good or better than the one we took out."

So Earnhardt started at the back rather than his original qualifying spot of 13th. It turned out to be a blessing because he missed the worst of the "Big One" group wreck on lap four, a 27-car pileup triggered by Ryan Newman's cut left front tire.

The field was just coming up to speed at the time Newman lost control, setting off chain-reaction crashes. Most drivers were still ensconced in their starting spots, and Newman had started eighth. Had Earnhardt started 13th, he, too, likely would have been a "Big One" victim right behind Newman.

As it was, Earnhardt had to sneak through the smoke, fire and careening cars, dodging the worst hits, plowing through the backstretch grass. But he didn't escape a few licks. Repairing some front-end damage cost him both time and spots in the field, and he and the Eurys knew their four-straight win mission suddenly had doubled in difficulty.

"I just made some lucky guesses," Earnhardt said. "I did go below the [yellow] line there to get by a few people, but it was a bad wreck and once we cleared through it, I knew the potential as far as tearing up the brakes on the car. We tore those up a little bit. I didn't guess that we were going to be competitive the rest of the day. If anything, we were just going to hang on to the draft."

Eury Sr. was more hopeful. He remembered a recent good run at Daytona after Earnhardt had lost one of his fenders.

"When we got in that wreck down there, it popped the nose apart," Eury Sr. said. "The nose made two pieces. There was nothing there to put the nose back together, so we ended up putting a piece of aluminum on the nose and pop-riveting, and trying to tape it. I think we ended up stopping 17 times to get it fixed. We just stayed at it, you know?"

So did Earnhardt.

He yo-yoed through the field, unable to dominate the top 10 as is his usual wont at Talladega. He also lost his top drafting partner when DEI teammate Michael Waltrip wrecked on lap 83. Waltrip finished the race, but did so 11 laps down, unable to assist Earnhardt.

The other DEI driver, Steve Park, couldn't help, either. He finished four laps down as a result of his crew having to repair a broken spoiler within the first 60 laps.

The drafting help that Earnhardt did get came primarily from Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick, and that happened mostly late. Sunday's final laps were intense, with the top 15 drivers banging equipment, shuffling back and forth and leaving their marks on one another.

"I don't think I ever tore up a car like we did today here at a plate track," Earnhardt said. "It was just some gouging going on. You had to really be tough or get knocked the hell out of the way."

The flashpoint came on lap 186, when Earnhardt rode the low groove through Turn 3. Kenseth, the leader at the time, was working high with Jimmie Johnson on his bumper. Running third, Earnhardt dove inside, and his left tires clearly went over the yellow line on the track apron -- NASCAR's out-of-bounds designation at Talladega and Daytona. He shot past Kenseth into the lead and ignited NASCAR's third post-race controversy in two weeks.

"When the [expletive]'s on, you ain't really thinking about the yellow line," Earnhardt said of the incident. He insisted he didn't stray below it on purpose. He was watching Kenseth instead and was worried that Kenseth might sweep down from the high groove to block him.

"I was trying not to run into him if he came down and crossed over [in front of] my car," Earnhardt said of Kenseth. "So it was more not to cause a wreck than anything. But I didn't necessarily intentionally intend to end up there."

NASCAR exonerated Earnhardt, claiming that he'd already passed Kenseth by the time his wheels crossed the yellow line, and thus didn't improve his position. He did, however, improve his status in the Cup point standings. He's now second behind Kenseth heading into Martinsville.

"It's just unfortunate that that's going to get the publicity and not the four in a row," Earnhardt said of the controversy