Bud car leads for first time in 2002

Whilst a finish down in sixteenth place is hardly something to shout about, Dale Earnhardt Jr's no 8 Chevrolet did manage to make a brief appearance at the head of the field.

Sterling Marlin added to his already impressive season on Sunday at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 8 Budweiser team improved 19 positions from their 35th place starting position to grab a 16th place finish.

The Bud team also led the race briefly, which is the first time they have led a race in 2002. The team was eligible for a million dollar "No Bull 5" bonus from Winston if they would have won the race. The finish earns the team a leap of six spots in the Winston Cup standings, moving to 25th.

Dale Jr. and the team fought with an ill-handling car all weekend, starting 35th. From the green flag, Dale Jr. moved up several positions immediately and began a steady climb through the field, climbing into the top 20 after 60 laps and then the top 10 on lap 123 (of 267 laps).

The team gambled with a two-tire pit stop on lap 139 to gain track position, climbing to second place at the restart. The red Bud car remained in or near the top 10 for the next 80 laps before a pit stop on lap 213. "This may sound kinda funny, but my damn butt's sore. The car was tight, tight, tight all day [the front tires wouldn't turn effectively] so I had to really strain and struggle to make the car turn. I was buckled in so tight and I was pushing hard on the wheel and bracing myself with my left leg, so my legs kind of went to sleep on me." A battered Earnhardt told the press.

"We really struggled through the weekend. The car just wouldn't respond to the changes we were making, so I was happy that it drove better during the early and middle stages of the race. You get pretty good at judging how your car rates against the others out there, so I was thinking we had a seventh-or eighth-place car. We didn't make too many changes to the car through the middle of the race, so maybe we just didn't keep on it as aggressively as we should have, because it got worse and worse the last two or three pit stops. Maybe we needed Pam" He added, drawing attention to the fact that a certain Pamela Anderson made an appearance in his crew on Sunday.