Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished third Saturday at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Credit: Autostock

Conservative approach benefits Junior at Lowe's

Despite tight car, Earnhardt Jr. finished third in UAW-GM Quality 500

CONCORD, N.C. -- As well as Dale Earnhardt Jr. has run since the inaugural Chase for the Nextel Cup began, it hasn't been good enough to overcome a slip of the tongue in Victory Lane at Talladega.

Earnhardt Jr. said he had to keep his emotions in check Saturday at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Credit: Autostock

Take Saturday night's UAW-GM Quality 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway, for example. Earnhardt fought a tight race car most of the race and finished third, but despite a plethora of miscues, bad luck and outright misery that befell his fellow Chasers, he only gained five points on leader Kurt Busch.

"I just have to keep finishing ahead of them," Earnhardt said following the race. "Aside from that, that's all you can do.

"Kurt brought his A game, we have our A game going on right now. We just have to keep having the same kind of weekend.

"Every race, I just focus on a top-10 finish. It's hard, but I try not to think about where Kurt is or Jeff is on the track or any of the other guys that are close enough. You just try to get what you can get."

With Busch and second-place finisher Jeff Gordon caught up in a first-lap crash and behind from the get-go, it was all Earnhardt could do to keep himself in check, he said.

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"There were a couple of times tonight where I had to kind of pull the reins back a little bit because I got to racing too hard. There's a point where you don't want to make any mistakes too early in the race."

As Gordon and Busch recovered from the early trouble -- both drivers were involved in at least one more altercation before picking up the pieces and moving on -- Earnhardt was plowing along in the top 10 all night long. From Lap 40 to the end of the race, he was never worse than seventh.

By contrast, Gordon didn't get back on the lead lap until Lap 210, and didn't make it to the top 10 until Lap 240.

Busch got his lap back earlier, but still didn't crack the top 10 until Lap 180.

UAW-GM Quality 500 •   Results •   Standings Victory Lane Jimmie Johnson completes the season sweep at Lowe's Disappointing Kahne's dominating performance ends up in the wall Nowhere to go J.Gordon spins and gets tagged by Rusty Wallace Spin cycle Vickers' night ends early has he tags the wall Near disaster Busch, Gordon involved in a wreck on Lap 1

Perhaps the restraint Earnhardt showed early on cost him later on, because he refused to allow his team to loosen the car up for the final segment.

"We had a pretty good car, probably a second-place car to the 9 [Kasey Kahne]," he said. "We got to trying some things and I wouldn't let them free the car up enough. I kept telling them I was a little tight, but don't get me too loose.

"That timid attitude toward loosening the car up didn't keep up with the track, because it tightened way up at the end. We had a good car when it counted and we got a great pit stop there with 20 to go and we were able to get a top-five.

"This is the kind of track we've struggled on, we've been going backwards here, and we've improved."

Earnhardt has finished third, ninth, first, ninth and third in the five Chase races run thus far, and he is 24 points behind Busch with five races left. Had he not run afoul of NASCAR's policy on profanity after winning at Talladega, he would be the leader by a single point heading to Martinsville.

Most of the drivers still breathing in the Chase for the Nextel Cup have done well at Martinsville, and Earnhardt was third there in the spring. Gordon, however, swept the 2003 races there and Busch won there in 2002, so it looks like another close battle ahead.

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The fact that Martinsville has been repaved since the spring race because the surface collapsed -- costing Gordon a possible victory and relegating him to sixth place at the end -- is another factor facing the Chasers.

"We've run well there in the past, but it's going to be a tough race there this time," Earnhardt said. "We all run pretty good there, and with this new surface, one of us might struggle. But we tested there and I hope we got it right."