Today’s Start Is 500 Straight For Earnhardt

This weekend at Pocono Raceway, Dale Earnhardt reaches another milestone in his NASCAR stock car career.

In today’s Miller 500, the seven-time Winston Cup star will make his 500th consecutive start, a feat topped only by retired Richard Petty and current series point leader Terry Labonte.

Earlier this season, Labonte passed Petty’s record of 513 and now has 522 consecutive starts.

“When somebody asked me about the 500 starts, I wasn’t aware we were coming up on it,” Earnhardt said. “I’ve started thinking those times and how exciting it was for me.

“When you are racing, you don’t think about all the records and stats. You’re focused on racing.”

Since he began his first full season of Winston Cup racing at the start of 1979, Earnhardt has missed only four races. Those came after he was involved in a violent crash during the Coca-Cola 500 at Pocono on July 30, 1979.

“Everything was going great,” Earnhardt said. “We were leading the rookie points and then, wouldn’t you know it, I break my leg. It wasn’t easy for me watching David Pearson driving my car around the track for those next four races. All I wanted was to get back in the car and race.”

Earnhardt finally returned to racing five weeks later at Richmond, Va., winning the pole position and finishing fourth to begin the current streak.

“When you think about it, (Bill) Elliott, (Ricky) Rudd, Rusty (Wallace) and Terry all started around the same time I did,” Earnhardt said. “Terry is the only one not to miss a race.

“We’ve been able to stay out of trouble and not get hurt since that wreck. I think that says a lot for NASCAR and the extra precautions it takes toward the safety of the drivers. You don’t hear about streaks like this in any other form of motorsports. NASCAR deserves a lot of credit for their efforts.”

Historic day

A year ago, Jeff Gordon won the race at Loudon, N.H., and vaulted past Sterling Marlin into the Winston Cup points lead. Gordon stayed out front the rest of the way, winning the championship.

Labonte, the 1984 Winston Cup champion, is hoping that part of history repeats itself.

He finished sixth Sunday at Loudon and moved past Earnhardt, who finished 12th, into the lead by 18 points. Gordon, whose blown engine relegated him to 34th place, remained third, but now trails Labonte by 116 points with 15 of 31 races remaining.

Labonte said he is feeling no pressure.

“It’s going to get real interesting if the points race continues on like it is,” he said, “because one of the contenders (Gordon) is our teammate and the defending champion, and the other guy (Earnhardt) wants to break one of the sport’s most coveted records.”

That record is the seven championships first accomplished by Richard Petty.

“The only pressure we have is to keep finishing good week-to-week and see if we can sneak in there at the end. We’ve still got a long way to get to the finish,” he said.

Marlin, who got off to a slow start this season, has moved from 21st in the standings to fifth in the past 14 races. He’s 362 points behind the leader, but only 150 out of fourth place.

Winners galore

Since the first Pocono race of 1992, there have been nine different winners in as many events at the Eastern Pennsylvania track.

Darrell Waltrip started the streak in June of 1992 by winning his second straight Pocono race. Since then, the victories have gone to Alan Kulwicki, Earnhardt, Kyle Petty, Geoff Bodine, Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett, Labonte and, this June, Gordon.

In 37 Winston Cup races at Pocono, there have been 18 different winners and no driver has won both races in a single season since Richard Petty in 1986.

Eight of the Pocono winners are still active and six of them - Waltrip, Bill Elliott, Earnhardt, Bodine, Wallace and Jarrett - have won the July event.

Being there

Darrell Waltrip missed the first Winston Cup race run at Pocono Raceway in August of 1974. He hasn’t missed any of the 36 Pocono races held since then.

That’s more than any other driver who has competed on the 2.5-mile trioval.

Waltrip, a three-time Winston Cup champion, has run 6,037 laps at Pocono, 201 more than Ricky Rudd’s 5,836 and 281 more than Dave Marcis. Waltrip has completed 15,092.5 miles at the mountain track.

But Waltrip isn’t the all-time lap leader at Pocono. That honor goes to Geoff Bodine, who has led 777 laps, 178 more than Waltrip.

Stat of the week

The 15 different drivers who led Sunday’s Jiffy Lube 300 at Loudon matches the number of leaders in the season-opening Daytona 500 for the most this season.

In fact, those two races have had the most different lap leaders of any race since the October event at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1994.