Martinsville slip-up still haunts Earnhardt

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s wait is finally over. After nearly seven months, NASCAR is back at Martinsville Speedway.

Earnhardt seeks the victory he lost in April, the last time the Sprint Cup Series competed at the half-mile speedway. He appeared headed for his first victory since the 2008 season before Kevin Harvick passed him with four laps to go.

"There are a lot of things you definitely would like another shot at in life," Earnhardt said.

Even with that runner-up finish - his best since the 2010 Daytona 500 - Earnhardt was less than thrilled, saying afterward: "I'm disappointed that I didn't get the job done, and it will probably bother me more and more as the night goes on. I'll probably think about it a million times what I probably could have done differently."

When Earnhardt thinks about the spring Martinsville race, he ponders what more he could have done to have gone through the corners better than Harvick.

There's one thing that sticks out to many about what Earnhardt didn't do that day. He didn't bump Harvick. That's not Earnhardt's style, though that's accepted practice in the final laps of a short-track race.

"Every time you lose a race, especially losing one that close, you run it through your mind for months and months maybe, about what you could have done differently," Earnhardt said.

"You never know what might have been the outcome, had I done something different. I would not have raced anybody dirty but, maybe I could have done a better job putting laps together while I was out there in front. Done a better job of not slipping up into (turn) one and doing things to give him an opportunity to get under me and things like that."

It was a few weeks after Martinsville that he nearly won the Coca-Cola 600, losing the lead on the last corner of the last lap when he ran out of fuel.

Now, with the series back at Martinsville, Earnhardt can begin to possibly answer the questions he's pondered the past few months.

Earnhardt has placed in the top 10 in five of the past seven Martinsville races. However, since placing third in the Chase-opening race at Chicagoland Speedway, he has not finished better than 14th.

While Earnhardt enters this weekend ninth in the standings, 74 points behind series leader Carl Edwards, Earnhardt has said there's still much left in this season for him.

"You still want to put forth the best account you can for yourself in the points," said Earnhardt, winless in his past 125 Cup races.

"You do not want to finish outside the top 10."