Earnhardt finds hope in Dover pace

On the eve of the Apache Warrior 400 at Dover, a conversation between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Ryan Blaney left Earnhardt offering a modest hope.

"I told [Blaney] I would just take a top 10 after the year that I've had," said Earnhardt, who finished seventh Sunday afternoon, in response to Blaney's observation of how fast the No. 88 Chevrolet was.

Having laid down fast times throughout the weekend's practice sessions, Earnhardt qualified seventh for the race – his first top-10 starting spot since winning the pole at Daytona in July. But Earnhardt wasn't about to get ahead of himself when it came to his expectations for the race, considering what a struggle the year has been.

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However, when the green flag fell, Earnhardt drove straight into contention and was running third 30 laps into the race. He would reside in the top 10 throughout the day, even among the top five at points which Earnhardt said the car was good enough to do. And considering that he lost practice time Friday due to inspection issues, Earnhardt credited some of the weekend's success to how strong the car was straight off the hauler, requiring little tinkering.

By crossing the line seventh, Earnhardt picked up his fifth top 10 of the season but just his first since late June at Sonoma. Something that left Earnhardt joking he felt like a road course ringer.

"It feels good. This team is really a good team and we have just had a lot of odd misfortune and we have ill-prepared ourselves at times," he said. "When the car is good, it seems like we have some bad luck. Then there are weekends where we just can't get the car right.

"It's been a pretty down year but hopefully this weekend is the start of some more good runs. I think we'll end this thing strong and I'm excited."

Overall, the weekend appeared to be one of, if not the most solid his Hendrick Motorsports team has had from start to finish but Earnhardt also pointed to earlier this year at Texas. That day, Earnhardt not only ran among the top five and finished fifth but was considered one of the fastest cars in the race.

"I really liked the way we ran at Texas – we were really good there and it just felt like we were a really good car," Earnhardt said. "I still think that has been our best effort so far."

With an average finish of 21.1 on the season, Earnhardt – along with his fans – has not had much to write home about. Dover was one of the few bright spots in what has now been 29 races. With the last seven races of Earnhardt's full-time career remaining, the hope is for more of the same.

When asked if indeed he and his team could build on Sunday's performance, Earnhardt spoke confidently.

"We've been trying some stuff. If you look at our car and how we have run – I know it's kind of hard to see, but we ran really good at Darlington and it carried over to Richmond. We had a strong run there and we were really good on the long runs," Earnhardt said.

"We brought some of those same principles to Dover. Some of that stuff can probably carry over. I'm optimistic that our performance is on the uptick and we'll see how it works out for next week."