Sam Sharpe/US Presswire

Back-to-back top-10s at Michigan and Bristol is just what Dale Earnhardt Jr. needed.

Top-10 at Bristol a good sign for No. 88

Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the No. 88 team's ninth-place finish in the Sharpie 500 on Saturday night, Junior's fifth top-10 of 2009: "Yeah, it was a good finish for us. The car was working good in practice, and when the race started we had some work to do. We made it better.

"I'm real proud of my team. My guys worked really hard. They had some awesome pit stops and we just had a pretty decent car. We just didn't have what we needed there at the end and the cautions fell a little too often for me."

Earnhardt on falling back toward the end of the race at Bristol Motor Speedway: "Well, that last run there we were real tight. I needed long runs. My car wasn't good at the restarts and those guys behind us, I think, had a little bit better tires than we did. I'm real happy. We were running real good.

"It's a shame we had all them cautions. I think Mark [Martin] could have won the race, and we could have probably finished a little bit better. All them cautions just stacked everybody up and we didn't have a good car on the restarts. It's just a shame. We worked hard, though."

Compiled from Team Chevy and Hendrick Motorsports news releases.