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CUP: Strong Run For Earnhardt
Dale Earnhardt Jr. had his best finish of the year at a non-restrictor-plate track...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted September 19, 2010   Loudon, NH
Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished seventh at Martinsville. (Photo: Getty Images)
At long last, the Earnhardt Nation has something to smile about.

After suffering through a dreadful season for the second year in a row, Dale Earnhardt Jr. looked like a new man Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where he finished fourth in the Sylvania 300 behind Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin and Jamie McMurray.

It was just Earnhardt’s third top-five finish of the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup season and the only one that didn’t come at Daytona International Speedway. In fact, it was Earnhardt’s first top-five finish at a non-restrictor-plate track since Michigan in August 2009, a span of 40 races.

And he managed it despite a couple of serious problems on pit stops, the first due to a jack malfunction, the second coming when he was blocked by Regan Smith on pit road, costing him precious seconds and spots on the grid.

Although he was frustrated a little by the things that went wrong, Earnhardt had much to smile about after the race, especially the effort put forth by his Hendrick Motorsports crew.

“The setbacks hurt us a lot,” said Earnhardt. “ ... We unloaded a great car. They did a good job preparing it at the shop. We worked on it all weekend. It was pretty good in practice and we improved on it a little bit. We had an eighth-place finish last time and felt like we really fast and consistent all day long.”

Earnhardt had to come all the way from his 32nd qualifying spot on a track that is notorious for being difficult to pass on. “We can’t qualify very good here,” said Earnhardt, “But once we get in race trim, we just kind of go to the front or get near the front.”

Despite the poor qualifying effort, Earnhardt was confident that his No. 88 Hendrick Chevrolet would get the job done.

“I felt like we had a top-10 car,” he said. “Then I had the jackstop break, so I had to go to the back of the field and then we had a miscommunication with (Regan Smith) on pit road that cost us half a lap under green.”

Earnhardt kept fighting and moving back towards the front of the pack.

“Just kind of battled back from all that stuff,” he said. “Track position is what we needed at the end and we didn’t have it. And we were able to restart on the outside a couple of times and make up a couple of spots on guys that were a little bit slower than us and get where we needed to be.”

Still, Earnhardt left wondering what might have been.

“If we had the track position, we were as fast as the 14 (Tony Stewart) at times and the 1 (McMurray) and all those guys that were up there battling for it at the end,” Earnhardt said. “We just needed track position. The 33 (race-winner Bowyer) had everybody covered. I don’t know if anybody would have been able to hold him off. He was pretty fast all day.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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