Dale Earnhardt Jr. now has six top-five finishes in 12 starts at Daytona. Credit: Autostock

Junior hoping top-three will swing his momentum

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Saturday night began an inch-by-inch journey back into the Chase for the Nextel Cup in the Pepsi 400.

Earnhardt took advantage of a third-place finish -- his best since he opened the season in the same position in the Daytona 500 and his first top-five since May 1 at Talladega -- to pick up two spots in the standings and 37 points on leader Jimmie Johnson.

Results Pepsi 400 at Daytona Pos. Driver Make 1. T. Stewart Chevrolet 2. J. McMurray Dodge 3. D. Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 4. R. Wallace Ford 5. D. Jarrett Ford • Complete results, click here • Standings, click here Victory LaneTony Stewart celebrates his Pepsi 400 win at Daytona Multi-car wreckThe Big One strikes on Lap 35 at Daytona Pepsi 400Get all the highlights from under the lights at Daytona Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE COKE TRACK ACCESS Interactive race highlights and instant win game

It about mirrored the effort by defending Pepsi 400 champion Jeff Gordon's team, which rallied for a seventh-place finish that bumped Gordon up a spot in the standings to 13th, and within a locked-into-the-Chase 396 points of first.

"Jeff's not out of it by any means; they are a strong race team," Earnhardt said. "Us, on the other hand, we're on the bottom of the rope, just hanging on, and we don't have much further to slide before it's over with.

"We have to dig pretty deep here to see if we can't make some gains in the next couple of races. You never know [so] we'll just have to see. We'll just have to keep trying until numerically we're not in it anymore."

Even though his run was at Daytona, a track at which he's won at twice, Earnhardt acknowledged its importance.

"That was a good run by the team," Earnhardt said. "I don't need it. I mean, I'm ready to go. My team's working hard.

"It's not like they needed a kick in the butt. They were going hard all year, even during some of the harder times."

For the 15th time this season, Earnhardt failed to lead a lap. But his No. 8 Chevrolet was competitive enough that he raced into the top-10 from his 39th starting position by just after halfway and remained there for the rest of the race.

"Yeah, we had a pretty good car," Earnhardt said. "The racetrack was real, real tight with all the rain. And, we were working on the car to improve it, and it got a lot better as we went.

"We fought real hard all night and got better track position as the night went on. We got a lot of help from all our friends [and] some unexpected help from one of my most fierce competitors right there at the end.

"I was telling everybody before that restart, that I don't think Rusty's [Wallace] ever bump-drafted me in my career; he's always trying to pass me because we were such competitors, corporately.

"He decided to tell me, from spotter to spotter, that he would help me. So, that was awesome at the end. We both gained spots there, working together [and] ended up with a good finish."

In the past six races, Earnhardt had finished no better than 14th, and in the process he'd fallen from ninth to 18th in the standings. He entered Daytona 543 points out of the lead and said his hopes of making the Chase had about reached rock bottom.

He didn't claim Daytona was a panacea, but he was pleased nonetheless. Now, the Dale Earnhardt Incorporated team hopes to keep the run going, even though Earnhardt claimed the concept of momentum was lost on him.

"Hopefully, if anything, they say you carry momentum," Earnhardt said. "I don't know if that's a possibility or not."

Earnhardt is 158 points out of 10th with nine races to the cutoff to the Chase for the Cup, so knows his chances are slimming.

"We'll see what we can rack here in the next couple of weeks and try to close the gap on 10th place," Earnhardt said. "This obviously helps and more runs like this would help.

"But, I understand this is Daytona and there aren't any more Daytonas and Talladegas before the Chase. We have to work really hard to gain ground on these other tracks we haven't had success yet this year."

Inside the Numbers Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Cup stats at the next nine racetracks Track Races T-10 Avg. Chicago 4 1 20.2 Loudon 11 4 18.8 Pocono 11 4 15.8 Indianapolis 5 1 17.2 Watkins Glen 5 2 19.0 Michigan 12 2 20.8 Bristol 11 5 13.8 Fontana 7 2 20.3 Richmond 12 8 9.2

That starts with Chicagoland Speedway this weekend.

Earnhardt said his memory was not that his 22nd place start and 27th place finish a year ago was totally horrendous. But still, he said his team had made enough changes and adjustments to run better this time around at Chicagoland.

"I thought we were running good and we got into some trouble -- I can't remember exactly because it's been so long ago," Earnhardt said. "But I'm looking forward to it.

"We've improved on our cars the last couple weeks and have had good-driving cars the last couple weeks and hopefully we'll get them to maintain.

"We've found some things in the front ends to help our cars to get them good and fast and that was very evident to me, especially as a driver at Michigan and I think we'll be able to take some of that stuff to Chicago, fine-tune it and get it even better."