At 49, Earnhardt puts the throttle to critics about his aging

Dave Caldwell

Sunday, July 2, 2000 | 4:21 a.m.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - He is 49 years old and hates it that he cannot quite get his gut to disappear. Otherwise, Dale Earnhardt is as happy as he could possibly be. He will almost admit to having fun. Almost.

"If someone tells you I'm riding my years out," Earnhardt said, pleasantly but firmly, "they're not paying attention."

Well, pay attention to this: Earnhardt is back to running with the whippersnappers, chasing an eighth Winston Cup championship. Following an eighth-place finish in the Pepsi 400 on Saturday, he remained in second place in the standing, just 52 points behind Bobby Labonte.

Jeff Burton won the race by holding off Dale Jarrett at the finish line, but the race to accumulate points has become more than a sideshow. Before Saturday's race, Labonte led Earnhardt by 67 points. Jarrett, 129 points behind Labonte a week ago, is now only 76 points back.

"I see Dale Earnhardt driving harder and more aggressively than I have seen him in the last three years," Burton said. "I don't see him bowing over by any means."

Earnhardt, who won his last championship six years ago and finished second in 1995, never dropped too far off the pace. But he dropped far enough for people to start noticing and delicately making the point that he was getting passed by.

That rankled Earnhardt almost as much as driving in a race like the Pepsi 400 in which restrictor plates are mandated to keep speeds down. This was never about age.

Four years after breaking his collarbone and sternum in a spectacular accident, Earnhardt is fully healthy. He also believes he is driving for a team that has a chance to win.

Earnhardt has not won a race this year but has finished in the top five seven times, equaling last year's output. He likes winning more than almost anything else, even seeing his son, Dale Jr., win a race, but he knows that consistency, not just checkered flags, wins Winston Cup championships. Much of the pressure will now come from chasing Labonte. Bring it on, Earnhardt said.

"I enjoy the pressure," he said. "I thrive on it."

What Earnhardt does not like is Nascar continually coming up with ways to slow drivers down. He misses the old days, which for him were the 1980's, in which he and drivers like Darrell Waltrip and Rusty Wallace did a lot of "gouging and sticking."

He does not like what has developed on the track. Now, Earnhardt said, the contenders run in a pack - "existing on the track together," to use his words - waiting for the perfect time to make the one move that could win a race.

Thirteen years ago, Bill Elliott won the pole for the Daytona 500 by turning a 210-mile-an-hour lap. The top qualifying speed for Saturday's race, run on the same track, was 187.547 mph.

"We're the only sport that ties the hands of the competitors from going faster," Earnhardt said.

He has foiled rules changes that might have handcuffed him. Richard Childress, the owner of Earnhardt's black Chevrolet, said before the Pepsi 500 that the race should be a showcase, for all cars but the Chevies. Even after the race, Earnhardt grumbled, "I think the Chevrolets are all about 15th-place cars."

Now Earnhardt finds himself on Labonte's rear bumper midway through the Winston Cup season. Labonte said Saturday that he still felt confident. "They beat us," Labonte said after finishing 12th, "but it was not as bad as it could have been."

Nevertheless, the top contenders are aware that Earnhardt has more experience at winning championships than they do.

"Obviously, he has a lot more experience at winning championships than Bobby and me put together," Jarrett, the defending champion, said, "and we could take a lot of other people and add them to that mix, and he'd still have more experience.

"We know that he's going to be tough as this goes on, as the season winds down, and if he can hang around, and we certainly feel that he will, it's going to be interesting to see."

Jeremy Mayfield nudged aside Earnhardt on the last lap of a victory June 19 at Long Pond, Pa., and Winston Cup fans instantly saw delicious symbolism in a 31-year-old pushing aside a driver closing hard on 50. Earnhardt said he was upset only that Mayfield made a big deal about the bump after the race.

"It's like he felt guilty about it," Earnhardt said.

Earnhardt said he had forgotten about it. There are other things to think about now, and for that, Earnhardt is glad.

"I think it's going to come down to team and driver," Earnhardt said, and he made sure to emphasize the second part.