If there is one thing certain, Earnhardt will get even, someday, somehow. It might come Sunday during the return trip to Pocono, or it might come later, like say at Bristol, where he has been known to treat the cereal bowl racetrack like his own demolition derby.

But getting even with Mayfield is not the thing foremost on Earnhardt's mind these days, not with his eighth Winston Cup championship perhaps looming on the horizon.

Mayfield, of course, provided the most dramatic moment of this season June 19, when he bumped Earnhardt in the final turn, sending him swerving out of the groove and opening his own path to victory lane.

Dale Earnhardt trails Bobby Labonte by 45 points going into the second half of the season.(Allsport)

It was a defining moment in the careers of both drivers. It raised Mayfield's stock considerably, giving him his second win this season and proving the mild-mannered country boy from Kentucky will do whatever it takes to win a race. For Earnhardt, he merely got a dose of his own medicine, enduring the type of fury he has inflicted on numerous drivers throughout his career.

While Mayfield was the toast of the town for exacting a bit of revenge on Earnhardt, the seven-time champion had no choice but to grin and bear it. He simply shook his head in disbelief and flashed his trademark grin when he climbed from his race car at Pocono. He'd been had, and he knew it.

It's not the fact that Mayfield shoved him out of his way that irked Earnhardt. It's that Mayfield showed him up afterward, making a public spectacle of it.

Mayfield climbed from his car in victory lane and mimicked Earnhardt, saying, "I was just trying to rattle his cage." The famous line, of course, was the one Earnhardt used last August while explaining why he ran over Terry Labonte on the last lap at Bristol.

Mayfield then egged it on when he claimed Earnhardt had done it to him countless times and vowed he would not be intimidated by The Intimidator. After about a week of hearing about the incident, Earnhardt grew tired of it.

"It was just racing," he said with a shrug at Sears Point Raceway June 24. "But everybody wanted to make a big deal out of it. Mayfield wanted to run his mouth about it when there was no need to run his mouth. That's fine. He can crow all he wants."

A month later, as the series heads back to Pocono, Earnhardt is hearing about it again as he faces the inevitable questions. Just as he has yet to live down last year's Bristol incident, he is now having a hard time shaking Mayfield, whose growing legend is suddenly stalking him like a shadow.

"I don't know why he made such a big deal out of it," Earnhardt said recently. "It was like he was guilty and he had to come up with an excuse or something. I wasn't jumping up and down screaming and hollering after the race. It happened. I'm a big boy. I can take it ... (But) I will be bold and say this, there ain't many (SOBs) that would have not wrecked that car."

It is such bravado and extreme confidence that may well lead Earnhardt to a record eighth championship. After three sub-par seasons in which he has finished no better than fifth in points, he is suddenly a serious contender again.

He has risen to second in points and trails Bobby Labonte by just 45 heading into the second half of the season. He would be closer, ironically, had he not lost 15 points when Mayfield bumped him from first to fourth at Pocono.

After three years -- including a winless 1997 -- in which he was practically written off by everyone in the sport, Earnhardt is back with a vengeance. He showed signs of his dramatic recovery last year, winning the infamous race at Bristol and sweeping both events at Talladega.

He has just one win this season -- a thriller he won by inches over Labonte at Atlanta -- but he has shown the type of consistency that led him to seven championships. He leads the series with 15 top-10 finishes and has become a threat almost every week again.

Earnhardt, 49, says he spent the past three years suffering from a variety of injuries, including nerve damage in his back and neck that had to be repaired during the offseason. He says his health is now a key to his return to greatness.

"I may have been hurt for the last two years and working with pain and stuff, and I didn't even realize it until it got worse and worse," he says. "I had to have something done about it, but that's all in the past. It's over. We're healthy, the team is healthy, everything is there. Now it's ours to capitalize on."

It's the championship, not revenge against Mayfield, that he's focused on. And no one knows how to go after it quite like the most dominant driver of the past two decades.

"If we can just keep doing what we're doing and get a little closer to Bobby and put some pressure on them guys ...," he says. "I enjoy the pressure. I thrive on it."

As he proved at Pocono, nearly winning and then saving a car that most drivers would have crashed, Earnhardt is definitely back.

"I'm not content with not winning," he says. "If somebody tells you I'm riding my years out, they're not paying attention."