He's suddenly the hottest driver on the Winston Cup circuit, with four consecutive top-10 finishes in his last four starts, including one win.

Ryan Newman, you say? Wrong.

He's accumulated more points than any other of the so-called "young gun" drivers in the last 10 races.

Tony Stewart, perhaps? Wrong again.

Well, then it's got to be Jimmie Johnson, right? Nope.

Okay, how about Kurt Busch, who won this past Sunday at Martinsville (Va.)? Try again.

As hard as it may seem to believe, given how rough much of this season has been to him, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has quietly -- and effectively, I might add -- been turning a forgettable campaign by his standards into a promising end of season run.

Earnhardt Jr., who once wallowed as low as 31st in the standings after the second race of the year (at Rockingham, N.C.), bounced up to fifth after winning the spring race at Talladega (Ala.), and then made a free fall that dropped him to 17th-place after the Brickyard 400, is suddenly on a major roll.

Earnhardt Jr. and his No. 8 Chevrolet Monte Carlo have jumped to 12th in the current standings and head into Atlanta Motor Speedway for this Sunday's NAPA 500 with perhaps the biggest momentum of any driver on the circuit.

"Atlanta is great," Earnhardt Jr. said. "It's no secret that the faster it is, the better I like it."

	Dale Earnhardt Jr. has two wins this season, both at Talladega.

Earnhardt Jr. not only returns to the same central Georgia track where he won the pole a year ago and finished second there this spring, he also is still riding a wave of energy that he's amassed after earning a season sweep at Talladega three weeks ago, along with other top-10 finishes at Martinsville this past Sunday (fourth), Charlotte (ninth) and Kansas (sixth).

"Four-straight top-10s is cool," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I think we have a realistic shot to keep that string going for the rest of the season, because no one has been better than this team for the past two months."

Earnhardt Jr. may be 479 points behind series leader Stewart, all but eliminated from the championship for this season, but he still has a lot to race for in the remaining four events of 2002. While he trails Stewart by such a distant margin, Earnhardt Jr. is only 40 points behind 11th-ranked Bill Elliott and trails 10th-place holder Dale Jarrett by 78 points.

What's more, Earnhardt Jr. is only 145 points behind eighth-ranked Matt Kenseth and is 162 points behind Busch, who holds down seventh place.

With tracks such as Atlanta, Rockingham, Phoenix and Homestead-Miami, all which play to Earnhardt Jr.'s strength as a driver, he's putting on a championship-style rush to finish as high as he possibly can in the standings by season's end.

"Look how close we are to the top-10 in points -- even the top seven or eight," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We had such a slump through the summer that you just kind of throw your hands up and think it's over. But, now we really have a serious shot to get back into the top 10, maybe even match the eighth-place we had last year."

In the last 10 Winston Cup races, Earnhardt Jr. leads his fellow young guns in points amassed, earning 1,453, followed by Stewart (1,423), Newman (1,403), Busch (1,326) and Johnson (1,293). Ever since August's race at Watkins Glen (N.Y.), Earnhardt Jr. has amassed a win at Talladega, two pole positions, seven top-10 finishes (plus an 11th-place showing), and four top-five outings.

He's also led more races this season (913 laps over 19 events), more than any other driver, and has amassed more bonus points (110) than any other team.

If he only had an extra five races to tack on to the end of the season, Earnhardt Jr. could realistically be challenging for the championship.

But he'll have to make himself content with his goal of an eighth-place finish in the final standings. Yet, at the same time, Earnhardt can race without the pressure of the championship chase hanging over his head, allowing him to take more chances than those currently in the title hunt can't afford to take, lest they be quickly knocked out of the running.

	“	We had such a slump through the summer that you just kind of throw your hands up and think it's over. But, now we really have a serious shot to get back into the top 10, maybe even match the eighth-place we had last year. ”
		— Earnhardt Jr.

"We're disappointed because we started the year being considered a contender for the title, and we set what we thought was a realistic goal of a top-five finish," Earnhardt Jr. said. "We didn't get that, so now we're pushing for a top-10 finish."

Atlanta is just the type of track to help Earnhardt Jr. continue in his quest towards a top-10 season -- if he can get over some of the strange mishaps that have plagued him there in the past. Even though he's led 218 laps in six career starts there, Lady Luck has always seemed to throw Earnhardt Jr. and the No. 8 a curve ball when it came time to win on the 1.5-mile tri-oval.

In the 2000 spring race, Earnhardt Jr. experienced one of the most freakish occurrences in recent Winston Cup memory. He was running second, only to have a loose telemetry cable running from the in-car TV camera mounted in his ride rub a hole in a rear brake line, causing him to lose his brakes and crash.

With five laps remaining in the 2001 spring race, Junior was in a three-wide battle for the lead when he was forced to pit to fix a flat tire.

Then, in last fall's race at Atlanta, where he started first, Earnhardt Jr. held a commanding lead with 30 laps left, only to have a piece of debris fly up and lodge in his eye, forcing him to drive the rest of the race with only one eye open, ultimately yielding the win to Bobby Labonte, while Junior settled for seventh.

"We've always run really well (at Atlanta), but crazy stuff kind of cost us a couple of times when we should have won," Earnhardt Jr. said. "The team is on such a roll right now. This is what we should have and could have done all season."

Jerry Bonkowski covers NASCAR for ESPN.com.