Earnhardt Jr. back on top a week after lousy run

<br>HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) _ During a rare intimate moment with his intimidating father about 3 1/2 years ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. learned quite a lesson. <br><br>Junior was struggling during a rough weekend

Monday, March 15th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

HAMPTON, Ga. (AP) _ During a rare intimate moment with his intimidating father about 3 1/2 years ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. learned quite a lesson.

Junior was struggling during a rough weekend at North Carolina Speedway, where he needed a provisional just to make the field. He didn't get much faster in practice.

``You'll have days like this,'' the elder Earnhardt told him that day. ``Don't ever let it get you down, because the next day might be the best day you've ever had.''

The old man should have seen his son Sunday.

A week after he nearly was parked for running too slow, Junior zoomed by Jeremy Mayfield with 15 laps to go and sprinted to an easy victory in the Golden Corral 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

``Last week was as bad as it ever gets,'' Earnhardt said. ``But we didn't get on each other too bad, and we stayed pretty focused.''

At Las Vegas last Sunday, Earnhardt started 26th and quickly drifted to the rear of the field. His Chevrolet was so far off the pace that NASCAR warned his crew he was right at the minimum speed.

``It was just so hard to go home and face your friends,'' Earnhardt said. ``Everybody on my team was saying they were sick of hearing questions about what was wrong with the car, and I said, 'Dude, I've been hearing it all week.' You just can't get away from it.''

After eventually finishing 35th, Earnhardt and the team spent Thursday testing at Kentucky Speedway. Just as the session was ending, they hit on a setup that worked, and Earnhardt was fast all weekend at Atlanta.

``We went testing, and we're going testing this week,'' Earnhardt said. ``We're going to test, test, test, until we lap the field.

``I'm determined and devoted to running like this every week, no matter what it costs.''

Rookie Kasey Kahne was third _ his third straight finish in the top three _ and Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman followed him across the finish line.

Defending series champ Matt Kenseth, who won the past two races, rallied from a lap down to finish sixth.

Earnhardt qualified seventh Sunday and stayed near the front, then dominated the latter stages. He passed Mayfield's Dodge for the lead with 60 laps to go and held the top spot until the leaders made their final pit stops under green.

Mayfield came in with 26 to go and his crew changed four tires in 14.3 seconds, then Earnhardt followed three laps later. His stop was nearly a second faster, but he came back on the track in third, behind Mayfield and Johnson.

With 20 laps left, Earnhardt drove by Johnson on the inside and set his sights on Mayfield. He didn't take long.

Junior ran up high in Turns 1 and 2 to get momentum, then swooped underneath Mayfield down the backstretch, moving into the lead with hardly a struggle.

``We had a great car to start with, but it just seemed as the race went on, the tighter we got,'' Mayfield said of his car's handling. ``Dale Jr. and those guys got ahead of the track and we didn't.''

Kenseth started 30th and was up to 13th after 15 laps. He eventually got to sixth before the first pit stops, but made a rare mistake _ spinning his Ford as he came into the pits _ and dropped a lap down after a drive-through penalty.

He made up the ground during the second caution for oil on the track, because he was the first lapped car behind the leader, and got his fourth straight top-10 finish to start the season.

Kenseth leads Tony Stewart by 82 points, with Earnhardt another eight points back.

``I'm happy with the overall result considering everything that went wrong,'' Kenseth said. ``At the beginning of the race, we had a lot better car than that and I messed it up. I'm feel bad about that.''