NASCAR At Kansas 2012: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Reels Off Another Top-10 Finish

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his No. 88 team have been clicking off consistent top-10 finishes so far this season, which has gotten him up to fourth place in the Sprint Cup Series point standings.

In fact, Sunday’s race seventh-place result at Kansas Speedway was the fourth consecutive top-10 for Earnhardt Jr. – his longest such streak since early in the 2008 season, which was the last year he won a race.

And while that’s certainly a good thing, Earnhardt Jr. now finds himself in a position to look for more.

“We had a good car and were pretty competitive,” he said after the race. “We have a real consistent team and we have that going for us; we just need to get that little bit more to get where we can try and win some races.”

What might have helped Earnhardt Jr. on Sunday were a couple more cautions, but for the second week in a row, there were prolonged stretches of green-flag racing – which gave teams less opportunity to work on their cars.

“Who knows?” Earnhardt Jr. said when asked if he thought another caution would have given him a shot at the win. “We could have dialed it right; you just never know what would have happened. The green flag runs when we did have a good car helped us hold our track position.

“I like long runs because that’s when the drivers get to do some work.”

What Earnhardt Jr. needs more than anything is to figure out why he can’t get his car to run like everyone else’s – particularly into the corners, where he said the back of his Chevrolet loses grip with the track.

“The car was fun to drive and we had a great weekend, but for whatever reason that last run we were really loose,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “When you look at all the guys racing around, their track bars are on the ground and we’re running ours about three inches higher. We just need to find a way to get ours down and get the car to rotate and get the rear grip in the car.”