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Mayfield recalls Earnhardt headlock
By CHUCK GIVLER
The Express-Times

LONG POND, Pa. -- Beating the late, great NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt at his own game isn't the only spotlight driver Jeremy Mayfield has for his Pocono Raceway experience.

For sure, that summer day four years ago when Mayfield dished out to Earnhardt some of his own medicine and won the Pocono 500 for the second time, stands frozen in time for the native of Owensboro, Kent.
    
Earnhardt, The Intimidator in his trademark No. 3 black and silver Chevy, seemed on his way to Pocono victory, while coming into turn three on the 2.5-mile tri-oval's final lap.

But racing in second place, Mayfield, as he'd seen seven-time NASCAR champion Earnhardt do so often, executed a bump-and-pass move and drove off to the finish line, leaving Earnhardt in his wake.

"It definitely was the highlight of my career, doing that pass of Dale Earnhardt," said Mayfield as he gears up for the upcoming 2004 Pocono 500. "It was the last lap, the last corner to the win. I still think of that a lot."

Mayfield, the only driver to score his first win at Pocono, recalls he may have whooped it up a little too much in victory lane and at the post-race press conference.

After all Earnhardt, who died tragically the next February in a crash during the Daytona 500, was an icon. And a mighty tough one at that, who in truth was the master of the chrome bumper.

"All of a sudden, I was trying to figure out what I was going to say to get out of this mess," said Mayfield, who drives a UAW-Dodge Dealers Dodge for former New Jersey modified stock car driver Ray Evernham.

"I said some things in the excitement after the race that maybe I shouldn't have said that probably pissed him off," Mayfield said. "I didn't see him until a couple of weeks later and I didn't know how he was going to act."

The day of reckoning came for Mayfield, who comes to Pocono for the first of two 500s this year, 15th in the Nextel Cup standings led by Dale Earnhardt Jr., over runner-up Jimmie Johnson.

"He came to me and got me in a normal headlock like only Earnhardt did," Mayfield recalls. Mayfield, who's last win was that day, lived to race on.

"He let me up and said it was a good race, a good job," Mayfield said. "He did say I shouldn't said all that stuff."

Seeing that he had no broken bones, Mayfield brashly posed a question Earnhardt, who had 76 career wins.

"I asked him if he was me and had just passed Dale Earnhardt that way on the last corner of the lap," Mayfield said, "the way he passed everybody and screwed them, what would he do?"

Earnhardt had the answer.

"He smiled and walked off and said he'd probably do the same thing," Mayfield said. "It showed the true champion in Dale Earnhardt. When I first knew him I didn't like him. But when time went by, I found he was a great guy."

It's no surprise Mayfield counts Pocono among his favorite tracks. His other favorite is California Speedway, where he has his other win and could easily have had a second.

But Mayfield, who makes his 20th Pocono start on Sunday, has never had a stranger experience than in the Pennsylvania 500 last July.

Mayfield had been involved in an altercation on the track and received repairs in the pits. He returned to the track with the field idling along under the caution flag.

As he roared toward turn one to catch the pack, suddenly he saw something on the track that didn't fit.

"It was one of the wildest things I ever saw in racing," the 35-year-old, 11-year NASCAR veteran said. "I'm the only car on the front stretch and see this guy run out on the race track. I said to myself, "Nah, he's not going to do this."

The shirtless man dressed only in shorts didn't realize a car would be on the track speeding alone.

"He saw me," Mayfield said. "I saw his eyes. He didn't know what he was going to do. I took evasive action and almost crashed. The last thing I saw of him is he whipped his pants down and mooned the crowd. I caught up to the pack and he wasn't there when we came around to take the green."

The streaker jumped the outside fence and was apprehended by track security in the nearby brush. He was later charged by local authorities.

"The craziest thing is, nobody ever asked me about it until you did at Daytona in February," Mayfield told an Express-Times reporter. "Some police guy had called and wanted to know if I wanted to press charges. I said, 'Nah.' "

Mayfield is coming off an eighth-place finish on Sunday at Dover in the MBNA 400, won by Mark Martin. Polesitter Mayfield and his teammate, rookie Kasey Kahne, were at one time running 1-2 at Dover and looked like solid victory contenders.

But both had mishaps, Kahne crashing his Evernham Racing Dodge while leading with 19 laps to go.

Action starts at Pocono on Thursday, behind gates closed to spectators, with stock car qualifying to set the field for the Saturday ARCA/Remax Series 100.
LUCKY DOG?
This could be the year Martin finally wins a Championship

Four times in his career Mark Martin has finished in second place in the final championship standings.

Only one other person, Junior Johnson has more wins, 50 and not won a championship. 
 
With his 34th career win Sunday at Dover, the 45-year-old driver climbed from 15th to 13th in the driver standings after 13 of the 26 races and is optimistic about qualifying for the Chase For The Nextel Cup championship this year.

The Chase will narrow the championship contenders to the top 10 drivers in points and anyone within 400 points of the leader.

Martin is now 442 points behind leader Dale Earnhardt Jr., and there are only 10 drivers within 400 points of him.

"Our point standings don't reflect anything like what our team has performed like this year...," Martin said. "We still can make the top 10 at the cut if we can keep the bad luck behind us now. We have had the worst luck of any racer that I know of this year."

But now perhaps his luck has turned around.

Martin managed to avoid one massive pileup and got a break when runaway leader Kasey Kahne crashed to ended a long losing streak Sunday.

``It was just a stroke of luck,'' Martin said after winning the bizarre race Sunday at Dover International Speedway. ``Everything worked out in our favor, but believe me, we were due.''
 
"I forgot what this feels like," Martin said smiling . "I raced for a year back in that pack. I can't tell you what it's like to race for 25th, but it's not any fun."

Last year certainly wasn't any fun for Martin. The 2003 season was the worst of Martin's career. He finished a career-worst 17th in the standings. He had 10 top-10 finishes, tying his career low with Roush Racing and he led in only seven of 36 races.

"I was miserable and embarrassed last year," he said earlier this season. "I'd be a fool to sign up for some more of that."

But then came 2004 and with a new crew chief Pat Tryson he has been full of optimism since Daytona.

At Lowe's Motor Speedway two weeks ago, Martin did something that the normally quiet,almost shy, Arkansas native has never been known for: he boasted that his team planned "to do some celebrating" after the Coca-Cola 600.

This from a guy that usually says every victory could be his last, and NASCAR's eternal pessimist was at it again Sunday.

He said that if he had pitted late in the race, he would have surely hit the same oil slick that took out Kasey Kahne.

Instead he stayed out and pulled away from Dale Earnhardt Junior and Tony Stewart,both of whom had fresher tires.

"He reached down and got some speed out of the car that I don't think anybody could've gotten but Mark," car owner Jack Roush said.

Indeed, Martins fastest laps came in the final 10 miles.

"It was either lose or get it done, and I didn't want to lose," Martin said. "It means an enormous amount. I dedicated my whole life to racing, and winning is why I race."

The win Sunday was a popular one, not only among fans, but fellow racers as well. Stewart, whom Martin once described as "a racer's racer," plowed his way into victory lane to shake Martin's hand.

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who ended up third Sunday, paid his respects to Martin afterwards: "He's one of the pure racers out there. He doesn't care about fame or money, nothing but racing and running good. There's not too many in the sport behind the wheel like him."

"I appreciate Junior saying that," Martin said. "He knew me when I was young, and he was knee-high. I went to Dale, Sr.'s house in January of 1982, and you can do the math - he was little.
 
"I've known him since he was little, so I think Junior knows. He's watched me, watched me race against his dad, and then got a chance to race against me, and I think he knows me and kind of knows who I am, what I'm made of. And he probably knows that his dad and I shared something in common - and it's all about the racing for me."

And now maybe, just maybe, Mark Martin still has what it takes to win it all. Despite what some critics say.

"It tickles me to death because people said Mark can't drive anymore," Jeff Burton said. "That's stupid. Mark's one of the best drivers out here. I'm proud of him."

As a Roush teammate and a former protege, Jeff Burton is one of Martins biggest supporters.

Could his win Sunday be a spark to ignite the championship flame?

If so then Dover would be a great track for it to start.

"I do love this racetrack, and Jack and I love this racetrack," Martin said.

"We came here a lot of times and ran really fast a lot of times and seemed to blow a lot of tires out and tested the walls out, tried to move them a few times. In the late '90s, we really finally started to get the final results here that we felt that we deserved."

"In the early years, he had such great passion and such great enthusiasm for it, he probably didn't have the experience to know how to keep the tire on it and keep the car underneath him, so he self-destructed a few times," Roush said.

"But this time he obviously used his years and his experience and all of his skill when it came time for him to stand on the gas - with tires that were older and for that reason should not have been as good as the tires behind.

"At the same time he was wary. He had a feeling of foreboding whenever he was caught in the back, and he held back. When he was Kasey Kahne's age or Kurt Busch's age he wouldn't have done that. I'm sure he would have been right up in the middle of it. I can remember some times when we were in the middle of some of the things here.

"Every day with Mark Martin is special for me," Roush said. "We've been through so much together. I started racing with Mark when I was 44 and he was 28, and I didn't know near enough about what I was trying to do, and he knew more than I did to start with. But he had some things to learn, too.

"But we've grown up together, and I've learned a lot from Mark. I will not look forward to his retirement day."

There was certainly no thoughts of retirement Sunday as his capped off his very lucky weekend with the win.

"We have had the worst luck of any racer that I know of this year, so this was our day for it all to go our way, instead of going against us," Martin said.

"There was a lot of strategy played here, and it all worked, which it doesn't seem to usually do. My deal started Saturday, the final lap of practice, when Morgan (Shepherd) blew up going into one and I was right behind him in the oil and slid right to the wall with my favorite race car, and almost hit the wall and then almost hit Morgan.

Just avoiding that was a huge thing, because we still had our favorite car in one piece."

His good fortune continued Sunday when he missed the big wreck.

"That's the first time I've seen one here, and that was a big one," he said. They were sure wadded up when I got there.

"But I got stopped, I did have time. But there was nowhere to go. I mean the track was totally blocked, and I stopped completely, dead still, and waited until the track cleared.

"Obviously because we had already pitted when Ryan Newman did his deal, that caught us a lap down. But we were the first car a lap down, so we got the 'lucky dog,' and then had to start at the tail end of the longest line."

It turned out that he was in the right place at the right time.

"The other three guys on the lead lap were up front (for the restart), so I said 'we'll never get to them,'" Martin said. "'There's no use in getting in a hurry here, let's just miss the wreck, because if there's a caution we can get up there and race them for it.'

"It was important to miss the wreck, and sure enough, there it was.

"But we almost got in it anyway."

Martin said that the track itself was a big problem.

"The racetrack never really seemed to take rubber," he said. "I don't know if it was because it was overcast, but the racetrack was difficult. It was really fast, but when the grip would break loose, it would break away really like ice. And the high groove never really came in

"So when you had a restart with all those cars a lap down, some in front of the leader, anybody who's been in racing very long knows they're probably going to wreck."

Martin couldn't believe he missed both wrecks.

"I've had so many things go wrong with opportunities missed that I couldn't believe that it was going to work out for us," he said. "I couldn't believe I was going to beat Tony Stewart.

"Listen: Tony outran me the first half the race, then at the end he had new tires and I didn't. I knew I had my work cut out for me and I knew I was probably going to get my heart broke. We got our heart broke last week at Charlotte, running this well. All I could do was stand up in the seat, and I guess I turned the fastest lap of the race for me right there at the end."

In his usual calm demenor, after the win Martin rode quietly into victory lane, unbuckled his belts and sat for a brief moment of reflection in his No. 6 Viagra Ford.

"I want to tell you guys one thing, though - I was really, really excited, but I don't know how to do a burnout, and I ain't going to do one. So I just hurried up and got to Victory Lane so I could see my guys who made it all happen.

"I'm going to leave burnouts for the young ones. I was excited enough to do one, but I would have either hit the wall or wrecked my car or killed the engine. Something stupid like that would have happened."

Word is, Martin might switch to racing pickups for Roush Racing in the next year or two, handing over the Nextel Cup reins to understudy Carl Edwards, who now is running in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck series.

But before Martin steps aside, he would dearly love to win a Cup championship.

Martin knows that he has proven that at 45, he is still fast enough and tough enough to stare down the likes of Earnhardt, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Kevin Harvick and the rest of the NASCAR youth movement.

With the exception of eighth-place Bobby Labonte (40), Martin is the only driver older than 33 in the top 13 in points going into this Sunday's race at Pocono.

So don't count Martin out.
Earnhardt Becomes Quietly Effective
By Dave Caldwell
New York Times

The race was not going Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s way. He was stuck in the middle of the pack for too long Sunday, a lap behind the leaders, and no matter how hard he pushed the gas pedal or tried to make a pass, he could not get his lap back.

That would have been a big problem for the old Dale Earnhardt Jr., but he is aware that he is closing on his 30th birthday, and he seems to be a different driver. He is still impatient, but no longer impetuous.

During a caution period that lasted 25 laps because of a cleanup after an accident and because of much confusion over the order of cars, Earnhardt decided to keep quiet. In his words, he has learned to keep his mouth shut when his opinion is different from Nascar's.

"In the past, I'd be shouting over the radio, voicing my opinion," he said late Sunday afternoon, after he finished third in the Nascar Nextel Cup MBNA 400 at Dover (Del.) International Speedway. "Today, we just sat there and let it sort itself out."

While nearly every other top competitor in the field crashed or encountered some kind of mishap, Earnhardt sat tight and finished in the top 10 for the 10th time in 13 races. That may not seem too exciting, but consistency is everything in Nascar.

Earnhardt, who has never won the driver's championship, is in first place in the points race. He leads the second-place driver, Jimmie Johnson, by 98 points. Johnson finished 32nd after he was involved in a 19-car wreck.

Twenty-three races remain, beginning with the Pocono 500 Sunday in Long Pond, Pa., but there is no lack of urgency. After 26 races, the top 10 drivers in the standing are to participate in a separate "chase for the championship" in the final 10 races.

The top driver will start the chase with only 5 more points than the second-place driver, no matter what the margin is after 26 races. Earnhardt noticed something different about how this season was developing. He is getting breaks.

"The 48 was looking like he was going to win the race, but we gained a big chunk on him," Earnhardt said of Johnson, who drives the No. 48 car. "There was nothing he could do about his situation. He got driven into a wreck. It wasn't like we got out there and outran him."

A week earlier, Johnson dominated the Coca-Cola 600, leading 334 of the 400 laps. Earnhardt's overall lead shriveled to 5 points from 40. But Earnhardt, who has won three times this season, finished sixth while driving a car that he thought might not be good enough to crack the top 10.

On Sunday, Earnhardt admitted that he probably would have never caught up to the leaders had there not been a big accident on the 347th of 400 laps. With 60 laps left, Earnhardt was in 17th place. With 40 laps left, he was in eighth.

It is not lost on Earnhardt that Matt Kenseth had a lot of days like that last year. Kenseth was much less spectacular than Earnhardt, but he was consistent enough to win the driver's championship.

That also explains why Johnson was furious after he was involved in the 19-car pileup. After he climbed out of his wrecked car, Johnson said: "People need to use their heads and race smart. They're three, four, five laps down, and they're racing like they're racing for the win."

Earnhardt was remarkably patient, even at the end of a long day. He had gotten back on the lead lap and had climbed into contention. He and Tony Stewart, friends who form a mutual admiration society, raced for second place in the final laps.

Earnhardt tried to cut under Stewart, but his car could not maintain its speed at the bottom of the track. So he backed off and seemed to be content with a top-five finish.

By realizing he could not pass Stewart, he forfeited 5 valuable points in the standing. But what if Earnhardt had tangled with Stewart - and both of them wrecked? Earnhardt might have lost more than 60 points by finishing 20th.

"I don't want to hit him, and he didn't want to hit me," Earnhardt said. "I had a good finish to be happy about, too. I'd like to have had a few more laps to try it a couple of times, but who's to say I'd have been able to get it back?"

Earnhardt is popular because he is an unpretentious playboy who drives hard. Those fans who loved his father, Dale Earnhardt, the seven-time champion, have been joined by new fans who like Earnhardt Jr. because he is brash and can win.

But Earnhardt is now picking his spots when to be brash.

"I'm sure there are a lot of guys who are disappointed about the way they finished or what happened to them," he said of Sunday's race. "You've got one guy sitting here who's real happy about where he finished. I didn't have a problem. I thought the race was pretty cool."