A few weeks back, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was thinking about his family and his life.
Not in the race car - where he goes into this weekend's event at New Hampshire sitting No. 4 in the points - but about how good his life is out of the car. He's thinking about how much better it is now then a year ago when he was in his final months withDale Earnhardt, Inc.
"I've thought about that a lot in the last two or three weeks, about how good it is now, 'cause it's really good," Earnhardt said Wednesday, in Manhattan with the Top 12 drivers in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
"Away from the track, my family, what I'm doing, the choices I'm making," Earnhardt said, "everything with that has never been better."
It wasn't always that way, of course. For the past couple years at DEI he had to deal with internal squabbles over how the team was run by his step-mother, Teresa Earnhardt, and their strained relationship.
But then last year he stepped out and signed with Rick Hendrick.
He had awesome friends on the team at DEI - the company his late father created - but up until his decision to leave Earnhardt said things "sucked."
When he left that stress was removed.
"I'm free of all this stress," he said. "The relationships that I got with all these people have gotten better because I can sit down and communicate with them, instead of just sitting there and fretting about everything and being stressed out and ticked off."
He said he'd been thinking about those relationships lately because "it's been good, it's been noticeable."
A lot has been riding on Dale Jr.'s shoulders this year. He's now driving for one of the top teams in the business and has some of the best equipment. In some ways, it's the first time he's had to stand on his own since his father was killed in a last-lap crash during the 2001 Daytona 500.
Gone are excuses about bad equipment and team troubles.
A year later he starts the title chase 70 points behind leader Kyle Buschand confident he has a shot at winning.
"Junior's going to be just as tough," Busch said, without the enthusiasm he shared for guys like Jimmie Johnson. "I just feel like he's lost a little something lately."
Nevertheless, Earnhardt said the change in his mood has had an impact.
"At the track it's the same. You work, you win some, you lose some, you're happy, you're sad and that's not going to change," he said. "It's a little easier to enjoy things away from the race track."
His move from DEI to Hendrick was one of the biggest in many years. Getting into the Chase, he said, validates the move. And winning the title would ultimately prove him right.
"That would just turn my world upside down," he said. "Winning a championship is hard to comprehend. I don't think I have the vocabulary to describe exactly what that would feel like. I don't even know what that would feel like, to be honest with you. It would be amazing."
But there are at least 11 other drivers eligible to win the championship who think they'd like to win the title as well, along with the other 31 drivers who are not eligible for the title who are racing for something else.
One or two bad days in the 10-race run and the dream dies.
"There's guys out there running for their jobs," he said. "There's guys out there who are old and know it and they're driving their ass off to prove they've still got it. You know, everybody's out there with different agendas."
What's the agenda for this new, happy version of Dale Earnhardt Jr.?
"Championships," he shot back, "and to make everybody happy."
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