Earnhardt Saw the Light

It appears that Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the hapless crew of the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet got the message. I stated last week that if they had any hopes of competing for the championship they had better get their act together and do it quick.

The No. 8 team's strong showing last weekend at Atlanta, coupled with pulling off the victory, puts them back into the fray again. With four races already in the books at the beginning of this season, defending champion Matt Kenseth is joined by Earnhardt as the only two winners.

With 32 races and the vast majority of the 2004 schedule remaining to be sorted out, we'll no doubt have lots more winners before the end of the hunt this coming November. Still, the thought of early domination of the championship race is fresh on everyone's mind.

Kenseth was under fire for winning the championship with only one victory, and apparently got tired of hearing about it and decided to hit the track with a vengeance in 2004. He'll be the first to tell you that he raced on the conservative side for the majority of last season to protect his championship lead. With the championship system change this season, apparently he feels that won't be necessary this time around.

Earnhardt missed the brass ring by 207 points last season even though he had one more win than the champion. He ended up in third place, getting bested by both Kenseth and Jimmy Johnson, who missed the brass ring by less than a hundred points. You can rest assured that Johnson will also be a factor in this year's hunt for the ring, along with the man to beat, Ryan Newman, who has already racked up two poles and sits in 11th place, fighting his way into the top ten. Jimmy Johnson is just a couple spots ahead of Newman in ninth place. Although, point's positions aren't that important at this stage of the game, those positions will change a couple of dozen times between now and November.

I'm happy to hear of the new rules change concerning pit road. NASCAR has mandated that the pit road will not open until the pace car collects the competitors and brings them around for the second lap (or first full lap) under caution. This move was made to hopefully alleviate the problems that are caused by those in the back of the field racing to make it to pit road to get their cars serviced at the same time as the rest of the field so as to get back on the track with a good position. These cars were coming to the pit road entrances too fast, causing a huge safety problem.

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