Finishing Ninth Is Enough for Earnhardt at Phoenix : Motor racing: He needs only to start at Atlanta in two weeks to win title. Allison wins race easily.

Dale Earnhardt had, for all intents and purposes, just put away his fifth Winston Cup championship and second in a row.

But he was less than thrilled with a ninth-place finish, a lap behind Davey Allison, who overpowered the field in Sunday’s Pyroil 500 NASCAR race at Phoenix International Raceway.

“The car was off on the handling and the engine a bit,” Earnhardt said. “It wasn’t very good the whole day. I wish we could have done a lot better this week and wrapped it up.”

Despite his unimpressive drive in the 312-lap, 500-kilometer race on the one-mile oval, Earnhardt needs only to start the season-finale on Nov. 17 at Atlanta Motor Speedway for his second consecutive series title and fourth in six years.

“If I don’t fall out of a tree deer hunting the next two weeks, we’ll be OK,” he said, finally breaking into a smile. “Then we’ll get them at Atlanta. We’ll go for it there.”

Earnhardt apparently will move a bit closer to seven-time champion Richard Petty. They are the only drivers to have won the title more than three times.

Allison, who came up with his second victory in a row and fifth of the year--tying him with Harry Gant for the season high--dominated the second half of the race.

“The car just flew for me all day,” Allison said. “Then, when we got that long green flag (period) late in the race, we found ourselves out front and away we went.”

Allison, who averaged 95.746 m.p.h. in a Ford Thunderbird and won $78,500, led three times for 163 laps.

He took the lead for good on Lap 147, passing Jimmy Spencer. The victory was enough to move Allison past Ricky Rudd into second place in the Winston Cup standings, but too late to make a run at Earnhardt.

Earnhardt drove a conservative race on the slippery asphalt track. He knew a finish in the top 10 would virtually put away the championship, no matter what Rudd or Allison did.

There were 10 caution flags in the first 179 laps, but the rest of the race was run without incident, giving Allison the chance to lap all but the five of the 43 starters in his 13th victory.

Darrell Waltrip wound up a distant 11.41 seconds behind, followed by Sterling Marlin, Alan Kulwicki, Rusty Wallace and Ernie Irvan.

Earnhardt has 4,127 points, 156 more than Allison and 165 ahead of Rudd. Qualifying at Atlanta would earn Earnhardt at least 43 points, and a maximum of 185 points are available to the winner of the race.