AHEAD OF THE GAME; NO 1999 WINS, BUT EARNHARDT JR. STILL IN THE LEAD.

Byline: Paul Helms

Not only is Dale Earnhardt Jr. one of the hottest young drivers in the country, he also might be one of the smartest. Earnhardt Jr. was asked Friday morning whether he'd prefer to have a few wins or the most points on the NASCAR Busch Series.

It was a fair question. Nine races into the season, Earnhardt Jr. has no victories, but his 1,241 points have given him a 100-point lead over second-place Matt Kenseth. Earnhardt didn't hesitate before answering: He'd rather have the points right now.

A few hours later, when the qualifying for today's Auto Club 300 was washed out by rain, Earnhardt reaped one of the rewards of being the series leader: He got the pole position for the race.

``Having the points lead at this point of the season is definitely a much better situation than winning a race,'' said Earnhardt.

The lineup for today's race was determined by where the drivers stand in points, so Earnhardt and Kenseth, the two leading point scorers this season, will be starting from the front row.

Earnhardt, who won seven races last season and captured the Busch Series championship, has already inked a five-year contract to join the Winston Cup circuit next year, so this is his last year as a Busch regular. The 24-year-old is still learning to handle his enormous fame, something that he said he wasn't entirely ready for last year.

``When they first announced the Budweiser deal, it got kind of crazy for a while,'' Earnhardt said. ``I didn't really know what to expect. I wasn't really prepared for everything that happened. We've made some adjustments and some changes and things have been a lot more enjoyable since then.''

Earnhardt was credited by several competitors Friday with increasing the exposure for the Busch Series, which has seen its points money more than double in the last year. The fact that he hasn't won in nine starts this year speaks to the competitiveness in the series. Earnhardt has a pair of top-five finishes and six top-10 finishes so far this year.

``He did a lot for our series last year. When he came in with his name, obviously, it did a lot of good,'' said Elton Sawyer, who will start from the third position today. ``Then he came out and proved he should be here, not by just winning and leading laps, but by winning the championship. I'm just going to ride along with him. I don't want him to leave. I want him to stay here.''

Earnhardt is already being groomed as the next big challenger for Jeff Gordon, though he said he's not entirely comfortable with that lofty expectation. He'd like to be viewed in the same way as any other driver who is in his second full year of Busch series racing, but he also realizes that with his name and his early success, that's impossible.

``I never asked to be put in a situation like that, but I don't back down from that, either,'' he said. ``It's a double-edged sword. You have to take the good with the bad.''

Kenseth, another young Busch regular who has Winston Cup aspirations, laughed when asked if he resented Earnhardt's popularity.

``I'm just thankful every day I'm in this series,'' Kenseth said. ``He should have gotten all that attention. He won seven races and led the most laps last year. If we switched things around and I won all those races and he still got most of the attention, maybe then I'd be a little mad at him.''

Earnhardt seemed a little embarrassed by all the kind words Friday and also seemed less than thrilled with some of the questions asked by reporters.

``Things have gotten better for us race after race,'' he said. ``Hopefully, we'll pull off (a win) here in the next couple of weeks.''

There's no time, of course, like the present.

CALIFORNIA 500

Sunday, 11 a.m.

Channel 7

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Photo

Photo: (Color) Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the Autolite 250 Grand National, his sixth of seven victories last year.

Steve Helber/Associated Press