Monday, October 07, 2002
Earhardt wins again in Talladega
By MIKE HARRIS
AP Motorsports Writer
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. cruised to his third straight victory at Talladega Superspeedway in Sunday's EA Sports 500, a race that shook up the tight championship battle.
Tony Stewart followed Earnhardt across the finish line in second place and jumped from third to the lead in the Winston Cup standings. Rookie Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin, who were ahead of Stewart in points, and Jeff Gordon, right behind, ran into trouble.
Earnhardt — whose late father won a record 10 races at Talladega — joined Buddy Baker, who did it in the 1970s, as the only driver to win three in a row on the fast 2.66-mile oval.
Little E's No. 8 Chevrolet was at or near the front of the pack throughout the 188-lap event, which didn't have a caution flag. Earnhardt took the lead for good on lap 150 and was never challenged, winding up with a race-high 56 laps led.
“As the pack sort of thinned down, with only four or five cars in line, that makes it harder to pass the leader,” Earnhardt said. “I was having a good time. The car wasn't doing everything I wanted it to do, but it did enough.”
By following up his top-five finish at Richmond last month with a victory Sunday, Earnhardt earned $1 million bonuses for himself and a fan chosen from a national drawing.
Stewart, who couldn't get a run on the leader in the waning laps, finished 0.118 seconds behind — about a car-length.
“I just wasn't going to do anything to hurt Junior,” Stewart said.
Asked if he was disappointed the lead pack didn't gang up on Earnhardt and help him push to the front on the last lap, Stewart said, “To be honest, I never saw anything behind me that last lap. I guess I looked in the mirror for a moment in turn 2 and turn 4, just to make sure nobody was making a move on me.”
Ricky Rudd finished third, followed by Kurt Busch, Jeff Green, Earnhardt teammate Steve Park, and rookie Ryan Newman.
It was a disastrous day for several of the leaders.
Johnson and Martin didn't even make it to the green flag before running into trouble when Martin's steering locked up on the pace lap and he veered down the 33-degree banking, hitting Johnson. The two slid into the grass on the main straightaway and both were forced to pit for repairs.
Martin wound up two laps down in 30th place, while Johnson — who came into the race leading Martin by 11 points and Stewart by 36 — quickly fell a lap behind and finished 37th when his engine failed after 173 laps.
Gordon, Johnson's teammate, had one of the strongest cars in the field, leading 27 laps before his engine succumbed on the 125th lap. The reigning Winston Cup champion finished 42nd.
Stewart came away with a 72-point lead over Martin and an 82-point edge over Johnson. Gordon fell from fourth to seventh and now trails the leader by 201 points with six races remaining.
“It doesn't matter a lot for me to be leading the points right now,” Stewart said. “I've led the points before. The day I want to be leading is” at the end of the season.
The field was able to stay away from the typical multicar crashes that often characterize races at Talladega and Daytona, where NASCAR requires a horsepower-sapping carburetor restrictor plate to keep cars under 200 mph.
NASCAR's attempt to spread out the field and lessen the chance of multicar accidents by cutting gas tanks from 22 to 12.5 gallons and forcing more pit stops was a mixed success.
The big packs, with two- and three-wide racing, reassembled within several laps of each pit stop through most of the race. However, the final stops were more spread out as teams ran different strategies.
At the end, there were only 10 cars in the lead pack that crossed the finish line in single file.
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Earhardt wins again in Talladega
