Earnhardt not giving up on Chase

Earnhardt had been seating in 'the bubble' to make the Chase for a few weeks already, but dropped to 13th in the points after being beaten to victory and 12th place in the standings by Kurt Busch at Pocono.

Last weekend he had his fifth engine failure of the year after running among the front-runners at Watkins Glen. Earnhardt apologised to his team for what looked to be a mistake on his side, after he admittedly overreved his engine while shifting.

The DEI driver, who is bound to Hendrick Motorsports for next year, could face an uphill struggle to recover and gain enough points to put himself back in position to make the Chase as he openly says.

"It won't be easy, but we've done a whole lot harder stuff than that. I can handle it," Earnhardt said.

"We'll just come back and try again. I'm going to make sure that I show my confidence in my team and make sure that I show them that I'm not giving up and they'll follow suit. And they'll show me a thing or two. We'll get something out of this"

Earnhardt admits the engine issues that have troubled him this season have put him in the position he is, but insists in that he will not give up in his effort to make the Chase for the third time in the last four years.

Of the remaining tracks to be raced before the Chase, Earnhardt has won at two of them in the past, Bristol and Richmond.

"This engine trouble is going to make it much more difficult than what we were looking at last week," Earnhardt added.

"But we're going to keep trying. We've got to keep trying. If we don't try, we'll be pretty damned ashamed of ourselves. So we've got to keep working."

Earnhardt, who has yet to win a race this year, is currently 100 points behind Kurt Busch. The Penske driver ranks 12th in the points standings as the last of those in position to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup, which starts in five weeks at Loudon.