But Earnhardt's spotter didn't relay the massage,
afraid Junior might give the 20 too much. It was in
Victory Lane when he learned of Stewart's plan.
"You can count on him to be there, but I expected him
to challenge me a little more," Junior said of Tony
Stewart.
But don't think that Stewart just handed Dale Jr the
victory. He knew that Junior had a faster car, but just
as importantly, Tony needed a good finish.
By challenging junior he could have easily lost the
draft and been shuffled back. Get too aggressive and he
could have wrecked them both.
Instead Stewart left Talladega with the Winston Cup
points lead -- and he went on to win the championship
that year.
"Tony had a good enough car to pass me, but the thing
was the pack kind of thinned down to four or five cars,"
Junior explained. "It's hard for just three or four cars
to push one guy by the leader. You need a whole pack
back there really pushing."
It didn't hurt Earnhardt's chances that his nemesis
-- and future teammate -- Jeff Gordon had engine
problems and fell from the race on lap 125.
All the other Hendrick Motorsports entries fell from
the race with the same problem. Jimmie Johnson, Joe
Nemecheck, Terry Labonte, and Gordon all suffered broken
valve springs and fell from competition.
2 drivers who lease Hendrick engines, Ken Shrader and
Johnny Benson, had the same problem.
In an attempt to break up the large packs of cars
that run together and often cause The Big One at
Talladega NASCAR mandated that teams use 12.5 gallon
fuel cells instead of the usual 22 gallon to force more
pit stops.
The strategy seemed to break up the packs for a few
laps after green flag stops, but within 5 to 6 laps the
cars had drafted back bumper to bumper.
Maybe that helped, as this race ran caution-free --
500 miles of flat out green flag racing.