Tuesday, July 27, 2004 | 9:11 a.m.
Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at [email protected] or (702) 259-4089.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he intends to race all 200 laps in Sunday's NASCAR Nextel Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway, but his team is planning for a repeat of this past weekend's race -- just in case.
If Earnhardt isn't able to go the distance Sunday because of his burns, John Andretti will be on hand to fill in for Earnhardt in the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet, according to a team spokesman. On Sunday at New Hampshire International Speedway, Earnhardt completed 61 laps before giving way to relief driver Martin Truex Jr.
"The plan is to rest and take it easy this week so I'll be ready to do 500 miles Sunday," Earnhardt said. "The burns heal a little more every day, but I'm still in a lot of pain. I felt pretty good inside the car, but I'm going to need all my strength (because) Pocono can wear you out even when you're 100 percent healthy.
"I couldn't have finished 300 laps (at New Hampshire) but I'm going to do all I can to get through this and be ready to go this week. I owe it to my team. They've worked so hard for so many years to put us in a place where we're in position to grab a championship, and I owe it to my sponsors and especially my fans."
In case Earnhardt can't complete the race, Andretti is being fitted for a seat that can be placed over Earnhardt's to facilitate a quick driver change, DEI director of motor sports Richie Gilmore said.
Truex took over for Earnhardt Sunday and drove the car to a 31st-place finish that allowed Earnhardt to remain in second place in the Nextel Cup points standings.
"All week, the guys said there was no pressure on me," Truex said of his Nextel Cup debut. "We were there to race for last-place points, and anything better than that was a bonus. So, I guess that means a bonus of 12 positions. It's not a lot, but it keeps Dale Jr. in second-place in the points."
BUSCH ACCEPTS BLAME: Las Vegas native Kyle Busch took responsibility for a late-race incident Sunday in which he ran into the back of Jason Keller during a restart, spinning out both drivers.
Busch, running fifth at the time, was black-flagged by NASCAR and penalized a lap for aggressive driving. He finished 25th and lost an opportunity to regain the NASCAR Busch Series points lead.
"I anticipated wrong," Busch said of the incident with Keller. "I kind of (messed) up and got into the back of Jason. I thought he was going and obviously I was wrong with it. I got into the back of him and I hate it for him and everybody else that was involved on his side.
"I wouldn't race that way in order to wreck somebody because I wasted my own day trying to do something stupid. It's a shame for all of us and we'll go on to next week."
Busch trails Truex by 94 points going into Saturday's race at Pikes Peak International Raceway.
PLAYING 'CATCH-UP': Brendan Gaughan has posted only one top-10 finish through 19 Nextel Cup races this season, but Gaughan said he hasn't given up on his preseason goal of contending for a victory in his rookie season.
Gaughan, a Las Vegas native, said the No. 77 Penske-Jasper Racing team will debut a new Penske chassis at the Aug. 8 Brickyard 400 and will begin phasing out the team's older equipment in the final half of the season.
"This year hasn't gone as well as we would have hoped," said Gaughan, who is 29th in points and has an average finish this season of 25th. "We came in with pretty high hopes with a new sponsor in Kodak and being a part of the Penske operation. It is a tough road. In this sport if you get behind, playing catch-up is nearly impossible so we've been trying to play catch-up nearly all year.
"We're finally getting to a point with chassis that we feel we're going to start being a little more competitive. The Kodak team still wants to meet a bunch of our goals. We're in the battle for the Raybestos (rookie) championship and we still want to do that, still want to catch a win this year, and we still think we can do all that stuff. We still have a lot of high hopes."
Gaughan's best finish this season is a sixth place at California Speedway in May.
NASCAR TO NEW YORK: International Speedway Corp. has agreed to purchase 676 acres of land on Staten Island and will build an 80,000-seat, 3/4-mile speedway, according to Bloomberg News.
ISC, which owns 13 tracks that host Nextel Cup races, plans to open the track by 2009, the news service reported.
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