Every spring of this, his twilight, the man who has become Dale Earnhardt Inc. has promised to revert to being Dale Earnhardt.
This time, he appears to mean it.
If he somehow regains the primal hunger that once made every lap a show worth seeing–then he will wield a double-edged sword through the ranks of NASCAR.
His victory at Atlanta last Sunday was his most convincing in four years. The four other victories he scattered since the onset of his slump in March of 1996 were not nearly as valid. Three were from crapshoots on restrictor-plate tracks. One was stolen–he wrecked leader Terry Labonte on the last lap at Bristol, Tenn., last August for what NASCAR let stand as a “win.”
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His beating of Bobby Labonte last week was clean and close and it followed by two weeks his strong second-place at Rockingham.
So Earnhardt, a seven-time Winston Cup champion who’ll turn 49 next month, appears ready to win again with regularity. His behavior in such a scenario may well determine boom or bust in public infatuation with NASCAR drivers.
Because he is considered a bully, on and off the track, and because his peers in Winston Cup racing accept that, he holds enormous sway over the way the others approach their jobs.
It was Earnhardt who, in the ’90s, led the thundering herd of once-passionate, once fan-friendly competitors over the cliff. They became crass money-counters and recluses who hide in their luxury motor coaches during race weekends, then soar aloofly away from their public in Learjets as soon as the races are over.
NASCAR drivers? Accessible? That’s a myth. For years, Earnhardt has been more tycoon than racer, more recluse than folk hero. His merchandise is estimated to have grossed as much as $50 million a year. He owns the teams for which son Dale Jr. and Steve Park drive, with combined sponsorship of about $20 million a year.
The several million he earns each year from the team for which he drives, Richard Childress Racing, is such pocket change to him that his current yacht, a 72-footer, is named Sunday Money. He has commissioned construction of a much larger one.
“I have a lot of things going on outside this race team,” Earnhardt euphemized at Atlanta.
Then he conceded, “You have to keep your eye on what got you there. That black 3 car got me there.”
His challenge, as he put it, is, “How do you focus on all of it and keep it going in the right direction?”
If he returns solely to being Dale Earnhardt in the black No. 3 car, it will be good for racing.
But if Dale Earnhardt Inc. finds a way to “focus on all of it”–to win, and still count money, and still hide in his motor coach, and still jet away from the masses as quickly as possible–then the others will follow.
That could shatter NASCAR’s fan-friendly myth altogether.
A change of heart: Erstwhile average Formula One driver Mark Blundell’s stock has soared in the eyes of Indianapolis Motor Speedway publicists, who have quoted him as an authority praising Indy’s new road course for the Sept. 24 U.S. Grand Prix.
Seems like only yesterday that Blundell, who went to CART after washing out in F1, was one of those no-name foreign drivers that Indy loyalists claimed CART was being overrun with. Now that he’s “in awe” of Indy, Indy loves him.
Our lips are sealed: Winston Cup drivers seem to be in collusion to teach the media a lesson about “negative reporting.” That may not bother the fan, but it should. You’re already cut off from the drivers. If they clam up to your only remaining proxies, then they’re essentially slamming the door fully and finally in the public’s face.
Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart have been markedly surly and clipped with the media in recent weeks. Word is that Joe Gibbs, car owner for Labonte and Stewart, has given their attitude his blessing–but then Gibbs as an NFL coach made the Washington Redskins the most laconic team in football.
Body talk: Venerable Darlington Raceway, site of Sunday’s Mall.com 400, is a handling track and should provide an equal-opportunity race–and therefore a lull in the bickering about whose body style is aerodynamically superior to whose. The merciful interlude will continue next week at America’s favorite short track, in Bristol, Tenn.
But the controversy will start up again when the Winston Cup tour gets to 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway the weekend of April 2. This time, expect the Ford teams to complain that Chevrolets now have the upper hand–and they’ll be right.
The dominance of Earnhardt and his teammate, Mike Skinner, at Atlanta showed that NASCAR’s rule change has leapfrogged the Monte Carlo past the Taurus in maneuverability.
So the case is still strong–and NASCAR technical officials keep working relentlessly–for a common body style.
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Ed Hinton can be reached at [email protected]