Strong fifth place at Bristol doesn't give Junior much relief

Even when Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a good finish, he comes up on the short end of things these days.

After struggling with engine problems as well as his own mistakes the past few weeks, Earnhardt Jr. finally righted the ship Saturday night with a solid fifth-place finish in the Sharpie 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the media: 'Y'all make it pretty miserable because that's all y'all talk about.' (US Presswire)

But unfortunately for Earnhardt Jr., he couldn't help his quest to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship.

That's because the man he's chasing for the coveted 12th and final Chase spot had a pretty good night himself. Kurt Busch came home sixth at Bristol, only giving up five points to Earnhardt Jr. in the process.

After starting 17th, Earnhardt Jr. guided his DEI No. 8 home to the fifth position, only his second top five in the past seven races.

"Well all I can do is be WFO and run as good as I can run," said Earnhardt Jr., who now trails Busch by 158 points with only two races left before the Chase cutoff. "Kurt runs good here. It's going to be hard to get any here but we were able to finish a spot ahead of him. I'd say you're doing pretty good because he wins a lot here."

The clock is certainly ticking on Earnhardt Jr., who is in danger of missing the playoffs for the second time in three years.

Junior knows all that, but is getting tired of talking about the championship situation every week and sometimes having his on-track performance overlooked in the process.

"Y'all make it pretty miserable because that's all y'all talk about," Earnhardt Jr. told the media after Saturday night's race. "I shouldn't tell you that you dictate my mood. Now you know but anyways, when we don't make it everybody makes a big deal out of it. They talk about it pre-race, they talk about it post-race for a couple weeks and it is a bummer. It's a bummer when you see that and have to watch that and read it and whatnot."

"You kind of want to go under the radar when you can't get it done but maybe we can get us a win. I'll be more ticked off if I don't win a race this year because I've run good all year. We've had so many opportunities, you know? And you won't get credit for running fifth and blowing up, running second blowing up. You just won't."

As NASCAR's highest-profile driver and arguably the most popular on the circuit, being in the spotlight comes with the territory. The fact of the matter is NASCAR expanded the Chase field from 10 to 12 drivers this year in an effort to help give the sport's superstars an opportunity to be in the championship race.

But it's looking more and more like Earnhardt Jr. will be on the sidelines again during the title chase as he was in 2005.

He'll need two near-perfect races at California -- where in his previous 11 starts he has three top 10 finishes and came home 40th earlier this year after blowing his engine -- and Richmond. Earnhardt Jr. will also need a dose of bad luck for Busch to have any hope of squeezing into the top 12.

With the way Busch is running, that seems unlikely.

"With all the attention that has been focused on the battle back there for the final Chase spot, it was quite amazing that we were racing the 8 car for the majority of tonight's race," said Busch, who was relieved to maintain his advantage in the standings. "Don't get me wrong; there are still two races remaining to put it all in place, but we have to be able to breathe a little sigh of relief after our performance here tonight."

Despite the pressure, Earnhardt Jr. is trying his best to enjoy the small triumphs like his run Saturday night and keep things in perspective as the regular schedule winds down and his championship season window becomes smaller.

"Yeah, I ain't worried about that," he said. "I had a good night tonight. I just run 500 miles at Bristol so I'm pretty stoked about finishing fifth. Sunday off baby! Finally!"