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Talladega tussle Earnhardt Jr. avoids last-lap crash to win EA Sports 500
Updated: Monday October 22, 2001 12:04 AM
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com TALLADEGA, Ala. -- The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Though Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn't make up the 18 spots in five laps that his father did on his way to a win at Talladega Superspeedway last fall, Little E did do a fair impression of his dad Sunday. For most of the afternoon, the EA Sports 500 had run pretty much as the drivers had predicted it would. That is, there wasn't a whole lot of real racing as drivers bided their time until the race's final stages. However, it ended with a furious finish that packed an afternoon's-worth of excitement into the final 10 laps, including a spectacular last-lap crash that collected 18 cars. At the end of it all, Earnhardt Jr. was able to hold off the frantic charges of Bobby Hamilton, Jeff Burton, Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart -- among others -- and emerge with his third win of the year. A few hours after the race, NASCAR officials announced that Earnhardt Jr.'s car did not meet minimum height requirements. Though officials say it's unlikely the win will be voided, NASCAR will not address the issue of penalties until Monday.
"We were beating and banging and carrying on," Earnhardt Jr. said. "If I saw anybody trying to pass me, I swerved up in front of them and tried not to take myself out." On the final lap, Labonte and Hamilton, battling for fourth, got together down the back straightaway and the event that drivers had worked to try to avoid all afternoon occurred. Labonte, inching in front of Hamilton, got loose and was tapped by Hamilton -- lightly, but enough to spin Labonte -- who then rolled down the back straightaway. The ensuing crash, reminiscent of what happened earlier this year in the Daytona 500, resulted in no serious injuries. That Earnhardt Jr. had to hold off four different drivers, each of whom held the lead at one point, was a testament to the fact that Sunday's race was classic restrictor-plate racing -- with three laps to go, it was anyone's for the winning. "I don't think anyone could have predicted a winner with 10 laps to go," Little E said. Indeed, the winner would be determined as much by who got the right push at the right time as it would by the skill of the driver.
With four laps remaining, Labonte was first, Earnhardt Jr. was second and Stewart was seventh. With three to go, Stewart overtook Earnhardt Jr. for second, dropping the No. 8 to fourth. With two to go, it was Labonte, Little E then Stewart. As those three took the white flag, Stewart got side by side with Earnhardt Jr. and inched ahead briefly. But then, Burton, who was ninth with two to go, suddenly pushed himself into the mix and made a difficult decision that sealed Earnhardt's win: He chose to help Earnhardt Jr. and not Stewart, and gave Little E the push he needed. "I looked at every possibility of what I could do to get myself the best chance to win," Burton said. "It just wasn't going to happen for us, so I had a choice -- the No. 20 or the No. 8. The No. 8 had helped me so much, the right thing to do was pay back the eight for all the work he had done. That's not a good spot to be in because you got one guy pissed off at you, another guy happy for you." Burton eventually finished third, close behind Stewart, who refused to speak to reporters after the race. Earnhardt Jr., aware of Burton's situation, knew he had a little help from a friend.
"If the No. 99 had helped [Stewart]," Earnhardt Jr. said, "we still would've been side by side coming down the homestretch and I probably would have got second. If [Burton] had pushed the No. 20 car, he probably would've won the race." When Earnhardt Jr. saw the final-lap crash in his rear-view mirror, he assumed the race was his. Stewart thought otherwise. "I didn't think that with all those guys wrecking that anybody could've gotten a run on us without two or three cars pushing," Earnhardt Jr. said. "As soon as I'm looking at cars spinning in the mirror, the No. 20 is on the outside of me. I could feel the wind. I could feel his car pulling my car toward him." But Stewart just didn't have enough.
With his win, Earnhardt Jr. moves to sixth in the points race. Jeff Gordon finished seventh, his best finish in the season's four restrictor-plate races, and extended his lead on Ricky Rudd, who finished 26th, to 395 points. Stewart remains third.
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