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1990 - The Fourth Championship
When
Mark Martin looks back on the 1990 season, the But a look at the record book indicates those points lost at the beginning of the season were not nearly as important as the points seized by Dale Earnhardt at the end of the season. With clutch performances in the final two races of the 1990 season, Dale converted a 45-point deficit into a championship-winning 26-point lead. At Phoenix, the next-to-last race on the circuit, while Mark Martin was tooling around to a 10th-place finish, Dale turned in the most dominating effort in track history. He maximized his opportunity by leading a reacord 262 laps en route to the victory, capturing all 185 points available to him. The amazing win gave Dale the points lead for the first time in five months by a narrow six-point margin.
Driving agressive -not rough- early to claim valuable bonus points for leading alp, he kept his car in the Top 5 and Mark Martin in his rear view mirror. Dale finished third, good enough to win his fourth Winston Cup crown, lifting him to second all-time on the Winston Cup leaderbord. The thrilling finish closed one of the best championship battles in NASCAR history. During the second half of the season, Dale and Mark were never separated by more than 63 points. After Dale's incredible run at Talladega- during which he won the pole, led the most laps (134 of 188) and won the race- the margin between the two was a single point. Dale finished 1990 with a series-high nine victories, including back-to-back wins at Atlanta and Darlington in the spring, Michigan and Daytona in the summer and Darlington-Richmomd in the fall. A sweep of the Talladega races completed his victory tour. In 1999 he would do the Talladega sweep again.
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49 points NASCAR stripped
from him after his victory at Richmond surely loom large, particularly
considering the deficit between he and champion Dale Earnhardt at the
end of the season was a mere 26 points. 
Perhaps
remembering the sting of defeat from 1989, Dale followed his triumphant
Phoenix run with a sflawless performance in the season
finale at Atlanta. 