Patience makes perfect: Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Daytona 500 because he paced himself and took care of his tires. The 2004 season will be defined by who can do the same

Sporting News, The, Feb 23, 2004 by Matt Crossman

Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows about patience. Doesn't mean he's always practiced it. Or that he will next week or the week after that. But at least he's come to an understanding of what it means in racing and what it means to this season and how it might win him a Nextel Cup championship.

And how it won him the Daytona 500.

On NASCAR's biggest stage and in its biggest race, Junior waited and waited and waited until the time was right. Then he slipped past Tony Stewart with 19 laps to run, and as any patient man would do, he confessed he "just started counting down the laps one at a time."

Junior knew he could pass Stewart because he'd been passing cars the same way all week in practice. There was no need to hurry, no need to risk doing something foolish. No need to do something he might have done earlier in his career--maybe even last year had he been in a similar position.

This time, he kept his emotions in check and drove a steady, calm race, things he hasn't always been able to do. "When I first came into the sport, I overdrove the car, and I overran myself out of the car," he told reporters the week before the 500. "It's all about pacing yourself and saving a little bit for the end."

Every driver, Earnhardt included, struggles with the internal battle that pits speed against patience. In the 500, that tension--mash on the gas or wait--was as intense for Earnhardt as it was for any driver in the field. He labored under the hard scrutiny of high expectations. Everyone expected him to win.

Last year, he had the best car going into the 500 but finished a disappointing 36th because of an alternator problem. That finish gnawed at him, and he also has the shadow of his father, the late Dale Earnhardt, to drive out from underneath.

The elder Earnhardt, who died in a crash on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, won 34 races at Daytona International Speedway, more than any other driver, but only one Daytona 500. He fell short of the sport's biggest win time after time, coming close numerous times, once taking a lead into the third of four turns on the final lap before cutting a tire. He finally won the 500 in 1998. Junior wanted no part of waiting so long, and as if there weren't enough pressure already, he admitted: "This is more important to me than any race I run all year."

So important he figured out he had to be patient to win it.

Junior held off Stewart at the end because he conserved his tires before making the pass. Sure, his No. 8 Chevrolet was loose the final laps, but so was Stewart's No. 20. The key was that Earnhardt didn't abuse his tires getting around Stewart. Last year, that wouldn't have been such a concern. But it's a concern this year, and Earnhardt took care with the softer tire compounds.

The softer tires will make patient driving like Earnhardt showed Sunday the key to the season. The new tires will wear out faster under an impatient driver. A worn-out tire makes a car harder to handle and slower.

A driver can keep his tires fresh longer by taking corners easier, holding off on passing, occasionally lifting off the accelerator and running smooth laps. "You can't run the fastest lap every lap that you possibly can drive," says Greg Biffle, who won the pole but started at the back of the pack because his team changed engines.

The tires will wear out eventually, lasting roughly 35 laps at Daytona, no matter how a guy drives, but the more patient he is, the more fast laps he'll be able to turn. That stands in stark contrast to last season.

"I used to hear people talk about conserving tires and saving them, but that's not the way it was" says Jamie McMurray, last season's Rookie of the Year. "You could drive as hard as you wanted every single lap. I think now you're going to see guys have to give up some at the beginning to be better at the end."

As a race, the Daytona 500 is part of a four-island archipelago with the two races at 2.66-mile Talladega and the second at Daytona. Those four races are nothing like the other 32 on the schedule. Those races stand out because restrictor plates are put on the carburetors to keep horsepower down. Teams use different engines, different shock and spring setups and different strategies. Still, it was clear from the 500 that 2004 won't much resemble 2003.

Races at 1.5-mile tracks, like the one March 7 at Las Vegas, will give an early indication of who has a handle on the new tires. Many crew chiefs and drivers are predicting those races will showcase a comeback from veterans, but that's putting it too simply.

The veterans aren't back; they never left. It's their style of racing that has returned. The last few seasons have been taken over by young drivers with little experience muscling their way to championship contention while veterans such as Rusty Wallace, Jeff Burton and Dale Jarrett struggled through some of the worst seasons of their careers. Young guns Earnhardt, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Newman, Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch succeeded in part because the sport changed from what it was when those veterans were successful.