Pressure to win immense, but Junior shows no signs of it
LOUDON, N.H. -- They always expect him to win it.
The belief is always there, every day, every race, every year, regardless of whether or not his results merit such anticipation. Dale Earnhardt Jr. walks through the Sprint Cup garage carrying burdens seen and unseen, from the legacy of his family's name to the ebb and flow of NASCAR's popularity to the unyielding pressure to win. Back in the Chase for the first time in two years? Nice. Snapped that 76-race winless streak at Michigan? Good. But the bigger prize, the one that will both validate and feed his popularity at the same time, is still unrealized. And no matter where he is in the point standings, no matter how well or poorly his car is running, the throngs of Junior Nation expect him to take it.
That's quite a heavy load for a 33-year-old with 18 career victories on NASCAR's premier series, no matter what organization he's driving for. Sure, Earnhardt has it all -- those rugged good looks, more cash than he could ever spend, and an ability to drive a racecar that's earned him the adoration of millions. But he also drags around the weight of expectation, like a cannonball chained to his leg. The magic is that he's able to handle it with such grace and relative understatement, somehow embracing all that rampant expectancy yet tempering it at the same time.
"You can never live up to those," Earnhardt said when asked about meeting the expectations of his massive fan base. "I wouldn't expect to. I would hope their expectations are super high. Anything short of a championship is not reaching their expectations, I'm sure."
Of course, Earnhardt wants to win the Sprint Cup championship himself. But wanting and expecting are two very different things. Regardless of how this season turns out, Earnhardt's first campaign with powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports will be a rousing success -- he's back in the year-end Chase for the first time since 2006, he's contending for race wins again, he's outrun the painful family drama that swallowed the end of his tenure with Dale Earnhardt Inc. He and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. have shown a promising touch with the new car, and should only get better going forward. We're on the verge of once again seeing the real Junior, the one who finished third in final points in 2003 and won six races the next year, the one who squashes all the short-sighted contrarians who think he's living off his last name.
But is that enough? Can Junior Nation be satisfied with progress and potential? For their driver's sake, let's hope so. With his low-key nature and his lazy North Carolina drawl, Earnhardt can come off as a guy with no worries. But he feels it. When you're NASCAR's most popular driver by a rather wide margin, it would be impossible not to.
"Pressure is hard to handle," he said at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, where he enters Sunday's Chase opener seeded fourth in the 12-man field. "It's not easy, I don't think. I don't particularly enjoy the pressure, but I wouldn't change anything about my world as far as in this garage, and how I'm treated by my friends and drivers, and really what my position is in this sport. I wouldn't give it up for nothing."
He's every bit as talented at handling his status as he is handling his racecar, an ability that comes in handy in a season like this one -- when he's good enough to whet his fan base's appetite for that long-awaited championship, but probably not quite good enough to win it. Strip away the bias, something all those folks wearing No. 88 gear often find difficult to do, and it's clear that this team isn't on the same level as those of Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, and Jimmie Johnson, the three obvious favorites as the 10-race playoff begins. No one knows that better than Junior, who after ripping off 11 top-10s in his first 15 starts of the season, has recorded just two since. As good as this year has been to him, he's playing catch-up when it comes to the big prize.
But such a scenario might play to Earnhardt's favor, dimming the spotlight just enough for him to make a move. The fact that he had an awesome car last weekend at Richmond was almost lost in Johnson's win, Tony Stewart's radio tirade, and who secured the final position in the Chase. He'll take the break whenever he can get it.
"It's kind of cool to be under the radar a little bit," he said. "We've had so much pressure this year. At the start of the season it was really hard to concentrate, and it was good to get a little bit of a break in the summer. Things kind of cooled off and everything mellowed a little bit. It feels good. I really like my position. I don't feel like we're underestimated. We know we've got a little work to do. We definitely don't have an argument that we're as strong as the top three guys, but we've got the tools. We've got the ability to be there."
He has the advantage of being able to compare notes with Johnson and Jeff Gordon, two teammates also vying for the title. He has the luxury of competing for car owner Rick Hendrick, a longtime mentor of Earnhardt's who has allowed the driver to assimilate at his own pace. And he has confidence, something that wasn't always evident during those trying, final days at DEI, when there were the ever-present worries about the engines or the equipment letting him down.
His peers have noticed. "He seems a lot more relaxed than what he used to be, and there is probably a lot more stress with the family business and having to answer to his dad's name, and I can kind of relate to that," Kevin Harvick said. "So it's getting into a situation where he is in more control of his own career, and it's got to feel more comfortable and more rewarding than the situation that he was in before."
Added Stewart: "It's hard without being a part of his program and seeing what he's got going on, but I think he's got more confidence this year," the two-time Cup champion said. "He's always been confident off the track, but I think you see it in his driving on the track. He's got a renewed confidence that I don't think we've seen the last couple of years."
But is that enough to help him win a championship? Maybe not. Like a college football program breaking in a new star quarterback, his team is probably still one year away. Of course, that doesn't mean Earnhardt doesn't allow himself to daydream of what it would be like, to hold that silver trophy and fulfill his destiny and cement his place in the sport. "I don't even have the vocabulary for it," he said. "It would be huge."
What would his reaction be? "You got to be happier than hell," he said. "I tell you one thing, wouldn't nobody be telling me what to do in that Victory Lane celebration. I'd be running it. We'd be doing what I want to do."
That's Earnhardt for you. Everything on his terms.
"I wouldn't do that hat dance," he said, "until I was damn well ready to do it."
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