Spotter's Stand: Despite Disappointment, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Slowly Gets Better

Dale Earnhardt Jr. may now vie for the top spot in terms of drivers completely unsatisfied with a top-five finish, but his fourth-place result n Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 marks the fourth straight race that his No. 88 has been 11th or better in the Sprint Cup Series.

It's just the second time Earnhardt Jr. has strung together four consecutive races of 11th or better in his time at Hendrick Motorsports. The first came early in his first season with the team, when Earnhardt Jr. finished second, third, fifth and sixth respectively starting with the third race of the 2008 season.

His current streak started with a seventh-place run at Michigan, after which his No. 88 Chevrolet showed up 16th in the point standings, 464 points behind the leader. After watching points leader Kevin Harvick win at Daytona, Earnhardt Jr. is 507 points from first, but has moved up considerably in the standings to 11th.

The top 12 drivers after the Richmond race in September advance to NASCAR's Chase for the Sprint Cup.

TNT seemed to miss the actual cause of David Ragan's crash on lap 117.

Ragan's brown No. 6 Ford appeared to get loose entering turn three, slide down the track and collect Jamie McMurray and Martin Truex Jr. But as replays showed and several drivers commented on, some fluid seemed to be on the track.

Following behind, Kasey Kahne's No. 9 also broke loose, as did Joey Logano's No. 20.

"I think I hit oil and just spun out, and then they wrecked in front of me so it actually helped me or I definitely would have been in that wreck because I was already slowed up," Kahne said.

Steve Park made his first start in the Sprint Cup Series since 2003 and thanks to missing the massive 19-car pileup on lap 148, scored a 13th-place finish in his Tommy Baldwin Racing Chevrolet.

Park's last efforts in Cup came with Richard Childress Racing after coming back from massive head injuries sustained in a freak accident in a Nationwide Series race at Darlington in 2001. Park became a regular in the Camping World Truck Series in 2004, but until Saturday had only made one start in any of NASCAR's major series since 2006.

Sam Hornish Jr. easily had one of the best-handling cars on the long runs. His No. 77 was good enough to lead 14 laps and despite getting a piece of the lap 148 melee, looked to be in contention for the win as laps wound down.

But Daytona ended for Hornish in a fashion that so many of his other Cup series races have finished -- with a crash. Hornish lost control exiting turn four with the white flag showing, spun teammate Kurt Busch and put Elliott Sadler's No. 19 hard in to the outside wall.

Hornish was credited with 21st-place, and it certainly makes you wonder if Daytona would be Hornish's last, best chance to score a win with a team owner in Roger Penske, who surely is growing more impatient.

The lap 83 wreck also was beneficial for a number of drivers who scored finishes that they haven't seen in awhile.

For Carl Edwards, his sixth-place finish was his best since Richmond in May. Reed Sorenson's eighth-place in the Red Bull No. 83 was his best run since a sixth-place at New Hampshire in 2008. And teammate Scott Speed wound up 10th for his second top-10 of the season.

Mike Bliss' ninth-place finish, though, holds the top spot in terms of best finish in a long time. You have to go back to 2005 at Bristol to find Bliss's last Top-10 run -- a streak approaching five years.