Publication: NASCAR News
Junior looks for his place | |
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NASCAR NEWS - Thursday, February 14, 2008
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Amid banners at Hendrick, Junior looks for his place
By David Caraviello, NASCAR.COM
When the hot water heater in Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s motor
coach broke down during last year's fall race weekend at
Richmond, Va., his future employer stepped forward with
a potential replacement. Rick Hendrick wasn't traveling
to the next event in New Hampshire, so the car owner
offered Earnhardt the use of his new motor coach, which
would otherwise sit idle. Even though the driver would
be working for Hendrick Motorsports in a few months, the
proposal made him uneasy.
"I can't take your coach," he told Hendrick. "I haven't
earned the right."
Earnhardt may be the most popular and most marketable
driver in NASCAR today, but those facts have never diluted
his very clear sense of place. He is well aware of his role
in the sport, what his legions of fans expect from him,
the weight and legacy carried by his last name. He's as
passionate about the circuit's history as he is its
present. He knows he has no Cup-level championships, he
knows he has no race wins in more than a season, and he
knows he's joined an organization with an abundance of
both.
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Debates about how Earnhardt will fit in at Hendrick often
center on the purely visual, on how a driver who likes to
wear facial scruff and untucked shirts will mesh with a
race team where everyone else is freshly shaven and out-
fitted in crisp Oxford knit. And it's true, there is
often a stark contrast in both personality and appearance
between Earnhardt and his new teammates, who aren't often
seen publicly in just a T-shirt and jeans. But as much as
Earnhardt burns to be the best, as much as longs to unleash
that championship driver that he believes dwells inside
him, his immediate acceptance at Hendrick centers around
one thing -- humility.
It's not a personality trait often associated with an
Earnhardt. But it's there, in his willingness to fly to
Daytona for a test session he wasn't scheduled to drive,
just to show support for teammates who were. It's there
in the eagerness and anticipation that led him to be the
first Hendrick driver to show up for offseason photo
shoots. It's there in the way he keeps quiet and listens
when he's on the sprawling Hendrick campus in north
Charlotte. It's there in his admittance that teammates
Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson are the drivers with all
the championships, and his uneasiness with the fact that
his very move from Dale Earnhardt Inc. may be upstaging
them.
"There have been a lot of references to me coming over
here, and it's sort of taken over the headlines here, so
to speak. I'm kind of uncomfortable with that. I don't
want those guys to resent me for that. I'm just trying
to come in here and do well," said Earnhardt, who hasn't
won a Cup points event since his triumph at Richmond in
the spring of 2006, now 62 race weekends ago.
"When we're working around here or doing things around
here, I just keep my mouth shut. I don't want to give them
the opinion that I'm trying to steal the limelight when
those guys are well deserving of it. Jimmie's a champion,
been the champion the last two years, a big story going
into this season should be whether he's going to three-
peat. That's the story. For me to not have won a race last
year and be a page ahead of him in the newspaper, it
shouldn't be that way. That's not my intention. I just
want to come in here and work. I want them to be glad I'm
here. I want them to be happy to have me as a teammate
because I helped them in some way throughout the year.
That's my goal."
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But only so much of that is within Earnhardt's control.
The size of his fan base, easily the biggest in NASCAR,
is unquestioned. So is the weight that his last name
carries. His split with stepmother Teresa over ownership
of DEI had an irresistible, almost soap-opera quality to
it, and dominated headlines last year. At a recent media
day at Hendrick, the size of the crowd around Earnhardt
dwarfed those around Johnson and Gordon, drivers with
six titles between them. His new teammates seem to accept
the fact that the attention comes with the driver, and
also seem able to separate the two.
"I've learned a lot about him since he's come to Hendrick,
and what I've learned is, this is a guy who cares a lot
about his on-track performance, he cares a lot about what
people think about him, and he wants to make a good
impression," Gordon said. "Those are great things. Those
are assets for us, and without him coming over here, you
don't really know and see some of those things. I think
he fits very well here. While we were even questioning
some of the same things other people were about managing
these high-profile drivers, I see that really not being
an issue."
Added Johnson: "I don't feel like he's stealing our thunder
in any way. The way we all operate as drivers and crew
chiefs, we just all want respect from one another, and we
want to go out on track and do our jobs. Junior is a racer
at heart, and that's one thing I've always respected about
him, and I don't ever see that being any different. That's
where the foundation of this four-car team, and even with
Jeff and Casey [Mears] involved, is going to come from. The
outside things, they are what they are. We all recognize
that after we've been in the sport long enough. There's
just a certain appeal and a huge freaking fan base that he
has, and I can't do anything about that. But we're going
to be great teammates and try to go out and win a lot of
races."
Earnhardt has certainly helped smooth the process. His late-
night decision last month to jet down to Daytona and watch
the other three Hendrick drivers test impressed his team-
mates to no end (read more). He sees his No. 88 cars being
built in the Hendrick shop, and he can't wait to drive
them. He can't wait to see how he gets around Martinsville,
can't wait to practice, can't wait to see how his cars
perform at any number of tracks. He used to open each
season with the slightest fear of failure lurking in the
back of his mind; now he's consumed by opportunity. Every
driver is optimistic at the start of a new season, but
Junior's level of expectation is stratospheric, and his
teammates sense it.
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"Absolutely," Gordon said. "It's no different that Jimmie
Johnson winning back-to-back championships, that's motiv-
ation for us. How [crew chief] Chad [Knaus] and he commun-
icate, those are things for us to learn from and grow from
and only become better. Same thing with Junior. When some-
body fresh comes in and they do things a little different,
same thing with Casey last year. Sometimes you get
complacent and you get too comfortable. It's nice to see
some of that refreshing excitement, especially when it's
somebody like Dale Earnhardt Jr. That only rubs off on
everybody else."
And then there's Earnhardt's relationship with his new
boss, someone he knew as a person long before he knew him
as an employer. Rick Hendrick has been in Dale Jr.'s life
for years as an advisor and mentor, helping the driver
think through the process of leaving DEI even before it
became clear that Earnhardt wanted to land at Hendrick. He
once owned a then-Busch car in which Earnhardt's father
won a race, and employed Earnhardt's grandfather as a
fabricator. Hendrick knew the younger Earnhardt, knew his
family, knew his desire to drive dependable equipment and
erase the questions over whether he could win a title.
Would Little E fit? There was never a doubt.
"We made it clear how we operate, and he wanted that,"
Hendrick said. "I've used this word a ton, but it's
'respect.' If the guys don't respect me, or they don't
respect each other, then it can be a free fall. You can
have people tear it up. I've said it before, this company
won't be broken down from the outside, it will happen from
the inside. I'm determined not to let that happen. When
you see a problem, you've got deal with it. These crew
chiefs here, they see a guy that doesn't fit, doesn't want
to participate, that thinks it's all crap, the meetings
and the way we approach things, they get them out of here.
It's like a cancer, it grows and it creates problems. Can
you have too many talented people? I don't think so. I
think as long as they work together, they're OK."
Sure, these days, Earnhardt may have to shave a little
more often. But it's still him, the auburn-haired kid from
Mooresville, N.C., with the twangy accent. He and Hendrick
keep running score on the shirttail -- tucked in for the
media event, but left out for a sponsor engagement the
night before. The colors and the packaging may have changed
a bit, but not the person. Dale Jr. knows who he is. It all
goes back to that sense of place.
"I've known Rick forever. Rick comes from a small town just
like I do. Rick knows rough times. Rick knows what a shirt-
tail looks like," Earnhardt joked. "You see where people
are now, where Rick is now, where Jeff is now, Jimmie now.
That's not how they were when they started. They weren't
always that way. They can appreciate that I don't strive
to make it to New York as far as a residence. That's not
going to be my place to go kick back in a bar or a club.
I like Mooresville. That's the kind of person I am. That's
who I'll always be. They won't change that, and I don't
expect them to ask me to do anything differently."
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