Confidence up for Park after strong Vegas effort

The road has been long and hard for Steve Park, and it's a long way from being complete.

Park still has plenty of Doubting Thomases out here, folks who suspect Park isn't the same driver as before he was drilled in the side by Larry Foyt in a Busch Series race more than a year-and-a-half ago.

STEVE PARK Park is happy after his fourth-place finish in Saturday's Busch Series race. Play video  •  Driver Page  •  2003 Winston Cup Stats

Last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Park took a step toward respectability to those doubters. His results from the Winston Cup UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 and the Busch Series Sam's Town 300 weren't spectacular, but maybe they were long overdue.

Park overcame a spin early in the Busch race, and though he lost a third-place fight with Mike Bliss, Park did finish fourth. And in the Winston Cup race, while teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip were finishing second and third, respectively, Park posted a solid 10h-place effort.

Fourth and 10th. Those finishes won't get Tony Stewart excited, but for Steve Park, they were welcomed like a $15 million sponsor.

"That's a great day," Park said of Sunday. "To get a good top-10 run, it just showed that I've got a confidence in this team that we can win races. This just goes to show you what a team effort is all about."

Park's showing in the Cup race was his best finish since a sixth-place run at Talladega last October. And it was his first unrestricted top-10 since a seventh at the Brickyard 400. Sure, Park ruffled Dale Jarrett's feathers -- and crumpled Jarrett's car -- but that's racing, right?

As for the Busch Series, Las Vegas was his first start since that fateful crash at Darlington, so maybe Park had something to prove.

Park, though, defiantly said that wasn't the case.

"I'm not looking to prove nothing to nobody," Park said. "We know we can run, we know we can run up front. I'm over trying to prove myself. It's one of those deals where I know I've got confidence enough that I can run up front.

"We're fixing to not only show that, like we did in the Busch Series, but doing it in the Cup series, too. We will do it this year, I guarantee it."

Big talk, of course, especially from a driver who was rumored to be on the way out of his Winston Cup ride a year ago. But Dale Earnhardt Inc. re-signed him for 2003, and Park does have something to prove to the folks at DEI.

The weekend at Las Vegas has to go a long way to proving to Teresa Earnhardt, Ty Norris and others at DEI that Park still has it.

	Park and crew chief Tony Gibson engineered a top-10 finish in last weekend's Winston Cup race at Las Vegas. Credit: Autostock

Even Earnhardt Jr., Park's Busch Series car owner, said it would be a boost to Park.

"Every driver needs a confidence boost from time to time," Earnhardt Jr. said. "Steve's got the talent. (Saturday's race) gave him an opportunity to show that he can still drive it. He did a great job.

"He did a lot of things out there that a lot of people won't realize or know about."

Such as?

"He was out there with older tires, and you could see what he was trying to get his car to do and what it didn't want to do, and how he was trying to adjust," Earnhardt Jr. said. "His attitude and his perseverance to get a fourth-place finish -- most people probably wouldn't have done so well. It says a lot about his character and a lot about his ability."

Park said having Earnhardt Jr. helping him from the pits was a big boost.

"That actually was a lot of fun," Park said. "He was excited, he was pumped up. He's not one of those car owners that sits back and doesn't say much. We got toward the end, and we were on old tires, and he said, 'Watch the outside.'

"With his experience and his expertise, being on top of the pit box, you couldn't ask for anybody any better.

"With Dale Jr. being the car owner with Teresa Earnhardt, I'm just living a dream right now."

Park's spin in the Busch Series race forced him to change tires, so when it came time to pit for the last time, his team didn't have another set. That left Park a sitting duck, but he was able to fight through it.

"We've always showed that when we have a good race car, we can run good," Park said. "Dale Jr. and Chance 2 gave me a great race car. It was a shame we spun early because we lost that set of tires that we needed at the end.

"To finish fifth with a car that we didn't put tires on when all the other guys did, they definitely knew we were here today."

And maybe Park is "here" for good.