Dale Jr.: Waving White Flag Is Somebody Else's Job

(Originally published on June 27, 2008)

You know he’s thinking about his legacy. For anybody who thought Dale Earnhardt Jr. wasn’t keeping score, all they had to do was read Wright Thompson’s ESPN.com piece a couple years back. In downtime during a day full of appearances, he without prompting asked a handler whether he was Hall of Fame-worthy.

The answer, of course, was yes.

The answer, of course, is wrong.

At least not right now. Actually, especially not right now. Because while the last two weeks have featured Junior’s first win with Hendrick Motorsports, they have also featured a tuck-tail-and-run approach to Sonoma that should have Rick Hendrick inquiring about Ron Fellows’ availability next time around.

Junior’s attitude—essentially giving up before the race even started—doesn’t jibe with his career aspirations. Championships be damned, wins not withstanding, there is one thing every driver wants. They want people to say, “Damn, that guy can win in anything, on anything.”

They say that about Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon, and now they say that about Kyle Busch.

Before, when Junior was at Dale Earnhardt Incarcerated, the rub was he didn’t have the equipment that would allow him to be that kind of driver.

Now he can have anything he wants, including the tutelage of teammate Gordon, one of the best ever on the road. Junior can still hate road racing, like his dad did, but when the green flag drops he still has to try to win. Is that too much to ask?

By laying down before he even took a qualifying lap at Sonoma, he handed ammunition to some Junior critics who say that he can only win when everything goes right for him. That stands in stark contrast to Busch, who won at Bristol last year only to say of the new COT, “They suck.”

Oh, how things can change in a year. Busch was the petulant child leaving Texas Motor Speedway in a huff, while Junior was the embodiment of maturity for finishing the race in Busch’s gnarled No. 5, even though it was that car that sent his piece to the showers. Now, Busch towers over Earnhardt, and not because of his five wins in ’08 to Junior’s one.

You know that every time Busch steps in a car, he’s trying to figure out a way to win. I still think he should have been parked for wrecking Ron Hornaday Jr. in the Truck Series race at Michigan. But doing something stupid on the track or after the race suddenly seems like a lighter offense compared to taking a race off.

This isn’t just a Sonoma thing. If Junior can be that blasé about competing at any track, there is a question as to how he will react when other adversity comes his way later in the year.

This stance might be insensitive if there were any lingering effects from the Sonoma sports car crash that left Junior with burns in 2004. But this seems to be more like a kid who decided he didn’t want to play with one of his many toys.

Who’s the mature one now?