CHASE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP Earnhardt Jr. and his team are seeing better times

The driver has rallied from injuries suffered in a crash and his team is clicking.
LOUDON, N.H. (AP) -- The last time Dale Earnhardt Jr. raced at New Hampshire International Speedway he was in pain and frustrated.
Things are a lot better for both Junior and his Dale Earnhardt Inc., team heading into today's Sylvania 300, the first race of NASCAR's new 10-man, 10-race championship playoff.
He's completely healed and free from the pain he endured after being burned on the neck and legs on July 18 in a crash during a California sports car event. Plus Earnhardt is one of the Cup title contenders and his team appears to be clicking on all cylinders just at the right time.
"As I got better, our runs got better and the team got better and our communications and morale and everything got better," Earnhardt said. "When I was unplugged from the situation because of the injuries, it really set a definite tone there within the shop and the team that something was missing and there was a void there.
"It showed in the way the cars drove. When I got back in the cars, I didn't even want to drive them they were so bad."
Worst weekends
The worst weekends were here the week after the crash and the following week at Pocono.
At the New Hampshire event, the hurting Earnhardt chose to skip qualifying and let his Busch Series driver Martin Truex Jr. put the car in the field. Earnhardt started the race -- which he had to do to get the points -- but Truex took over after 60 laps and drove to a respectable 31st-place finish in his Cup debut.
At Pocono, it was John Andretti who relieved Earnhardt and brought the car home 25th, although Junior insisted it wasn't the pain that was the problem that day.
"I could have run the rest of the way, but the car was so bad, there was no use in me being in there wasting my time," Earnhardt said at the time.
Since then, Earnhardt has stayed in the car and has come up with a win at Bristol and two other top-five finishes in five starts.
"I still don't think we're as good as we were when the season starts, but we've got enough time to put it together and race by race we'll try to do that. ... Relatively, we're still a young team and making a lot of changes and having a lot of jelling and stuff to do. Hopefully, we'll perfect it one of these days."
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