After bad start, Little E races back into contention

	After consecutive top-10 finishes in his last two races, Dale Earnhardt Jr. finally has something to be happy about this season. Warren Wimmer/WireImage.com

Two races into the Nextel Cup season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was down and, some thought, nearly out of Chase hope. He was 40th in the points and another bad result or two would send the No. 8 team into a panicked freefall that would bury them deep. Further, with the season lost, the theory went, Earnhardt would have setled his contract dispute with Dale Earnhardt Inc., by signing with another organization for next season.

Three races later, though, the storm building around Earnhardt has subsided and been replaced by a resurgence. Earnhardt put together his strongest race of the season last week at Martinsville, leading 137 laps and finishing fifth. the performance advanced Earnhardt six spots in the points, to 11th and in Chase country.

Earnhardt and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have matured together and it shows. After the poor start, they were solid in the following three races: 11th at Las Vegas, 14th at Atlanta and seventh at Bristol. With that sort of momentum, they probably didn't want to see this off week.

Martinsville was a confidence booster for Earnhardt and Eury, too, and should sustain their surge going into Texas. Earnhardt had led only one lap this season before Martinsville, where -- according to NASCAR's loop statistics -- he also had 97 of the 500 fastest laps. Earnhardt also had the best average running position (3.6) and was never scored outside of the top 15.

Earnhardt was in front when the race was red flagged for rain on the 357th lap. After leading for another 20 before making his final pit stop, he fell back and was only able to recover to fifth.

"If it wouldn't have rained, we would have been hard for the rest of the field to handle," Earnhardt said. "But, I gotta give Tony and the Budweiser guys all the credit for this car. We unloaded fast and stayed fast. They set the car up to get better as the day went on, but we were never the same after the rain.

"We made a pit stop and were never able to get back in the lead. We were still pretty good, but not like we were earlier. That's a shame, but we had a great car, great pit stops and we gained a lot of points."

As if the rain wasn't enough to overcome, Earnhardt also was forced to overcome an irritating eye problem caused by drying the track during the red flag.

"I got something in my eye when I got back in the car after the rain," Earnhardt said. "The jet dryer was moving really, really slow and I was helpless just sitting there while it blew [stuff] inside my car for what must have been 15 or 20 seconds. I mean, that's ridiculous. I was sitting there thinking, 'Go! Move on! Let me out! Help!' It was crazy. They need to be better about that. Either dry the track before we get in or keep those dryers moving."