That at least for the next five years, there will be no Cup Championships won by an Earnhardt for the DEI camp.
I saw it in Dale's face tonight when the media scampered over to his hauler after his 5th motor failure this year. Tony looked the same way. Such heartache.
After displaying some brilliant driving to stay in the fight to win at Richmond and pull off a miracle to get into the Chase, no one can doubt this man's talent.
But is it just equipment that held him back? Apparantly so.
If we go conservative with finishes, and say that the 5 motor related DNFs were an average finish of 15, all things else being equal, including the 100 point penalty, little e would be in the Chase, and Harvick would be out.
Which goes back to my point earlier about paying attention to details and finishing every race. If more teams had paid attention to HMS up until the All Star Race, there would have been more teams, including more Dodge teams trying to make it in, instead of fighting for owner's points.
So hat's off to the Hendrick teams for pulling off a nearly flawless season. The other teams had better be paying attention to what they did this year, and treat each race like it was Richmond. Build cars that will win, and have the drivers in those cars always on the edge knowing that EVERY LAP COUNTS!