Earnhardt ends Daytona run with Busch victory

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s win in the Busch season opener was his third of Speedweeks. AP

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- All Dale Earnhardt Jr. wanted to do Monday was take it easy and enjoy his Daytona 500 victory.

Instead, he slipped on his driving uniform and returned to work, weary from lack of sleep and drained emotionally.

It didn't matter. Junior held off a series of challenges and won the delayed Hershey's Kisses 300 Busch series race.

The race was postponed Saturday by rain after just 31 of 120 laps at Daytona International Speedway.

Asked how much rest he got Sunday night after winning NASCAR's biggest race, Earnhardt grinned and said, "A little, but it's like the guy who goes into a gas station and buys a dollar's worth of gas, just enough to get where he needs to go."

Once he climbed into his No. 8 Chance 2 Chevrolet, a car he co-owns with stepmother Teresa Earnhardt, Junior found the energy to take the Daytona Busch race for the third consecutive year.

He added Monday's win to victories in the Daytona 500 on Sunday and in one of the twin 125-mile qualifying races Thursday.

On top of that, Earnhardt finished second in the Budweiser Shootout, qualified third in time trials for the 500 and nearly added a victory in the Rolex 24 sports car endurance racing. His team finished fourth in that event when a broken suspension part knocked their car out of the lead with 20 minutes remaining.

"I guess you'd have to say it's been a heck of a couple of weeks," Earnhardt said.

He was out front for Monday's restart of the Busch series season-opener but fell back as far as 10th before using a fast pit stop on lap 74 to catch the leaders.

"I knew I could take the lead any time I wanted to, so I could take it easy for a while," he said. "Some of those guys were racing up there a little harder than I really cared for. Mentally, you can only race that hard for so long."

He regained the lead on lap 85, gave it up twice briefly, then pulled away from everyone but Johnny Sauter at the end while the rest of the contenders got into a series of side-by-side battles and slipped behind.

At the end, Earnhardt drove across the finish line 0.135 seconds -- about two car-lengths -- ahead of Sauter. Nextel Cup drivers swept the top five spots, with Robby Gordon third, followed by Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth.

Sauter, Gordon and Harvick are teammates at Richard Childress Racing in the Cup series, but they weren't able to gang up on Earnhardt on Monday.

"There was a lot of guys racing so hard for second and third, I didn't get as many challenges as I expected," Earnhardt said.

It was Earnhardt's ninth victory on Daytona's 2 1/2-mile oval. His late father holds the record with 34 Daytona wins, including the 1998 Daytona 500. The elder Earnhardt also set a record by winning the Busch race five times in a row, and Junior said he wants to chase that mark.

"We're going to go for five," Earnhardt said. "Heck, we'll go for six, seven, eight -- as many as we can.

"I feel you can compare me to him today because we've done so much over the last three years here," Junior added. "I just want to keep adding to what he did."

Sauter, Gordon and Harvick all took shots at knocking Earnhardt off the lead Monday, but Junior was able to stay out front or regain the lead each time.

"When somebody got along side of me, I always got somebody else to help me," the winner said. "Johnny helped me a lot."

Sauter combined with Harvick to give Childress the Busch series owners' championship in 2003.

"I don't think Junior had the best car today, unless he was playing with us," Sauter said. "Harvick probably had the best car, but I kind of hung him out there."

Monday's race was marred by a nine-car crash just 10 laps after the restart. No injuries were reported.