Earnhardt Jr. ready for next step

[The General]

HOMESTEAD, Fla. - There will be a lot of lasts on Sunday as the curtain closes on the 2007 Nextel Cup season.

In 2008, NASCAR's top tour will be known as the Sprint Cup. The Car of Tomorrow, which premiered earlier this season at Bristol Motor Speedway, will become the Car of Now. After 26 seasons with Anheuser-Busch as the title sponsor, the Triple A division will be renamed the Nationwide Series.

But when it comes to change, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s move to Hendrick Motorsports will be the most widely anticipated of all. Though Earnhardt is eager to complete the transition, because he feels his best hopes of winning a championship lie in a Hendrick car, the move also means that he will not win a title for the company founded by his father.

"I will be sad for my father that things aren't different," Earnhardt said. "I'm sad for him, not for me or anybody else. I'm just sad because his vision was different. He was such a great person and his visions were great and worthy and should be realized.

"That'll be a shame."

Understandably, Earnhardt fills a void for those who miss his father. For many people in the NASCAR garage, a day still doesn't go by without some memory of the myth, the legend that was Dale Earnhardt.

Yet watching the man and the racer that Junior has evolved into, from his earliest Busch Series days when he was an apprehensive 17-year-old standing around the garage affectionately referred to as "The Deer Head Shop" — where his father's "trophies" graced the walls — to the team leader and team owner he has become, it's apparent how much Earnhardt absorbed along the way and how he persevered.

It was also apparent that the time had come to move on.

"You didn't have that power figure," said Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's long-time crew chief and cousin, referring to the loss of Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500. "You knew if the race teams didn't perform, the sponsors wouldn't come. You didn't have that guy who would put on his cowboy boots and his suit and go to New York and come back with a sponsor for you. That was always pretty big and it was nice to be able to pull something like that out of your back pocket.

"Big E had a dream and that's what we were all fighting for. Everybody in the sport knows things would be different if he were still around. But you have to take what you got and roll with it. That's what we did. We tried to do it as best as we could and I think we did the right thing."

And when the drivers are given the command to start their engines on Sunday, there will be a flood of mixed emotions for the driver, the family and the fans when Earnhardt toggles the switch of the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet for the 291st and final time before departing to Hendrick Motorsports.

"Honestly, no matter what led to the actual reason for leaving, there's going to be emotion in it because it's the end of an era," said Jimmy Elledge, crew chief on the No. 41 Chip Ganassi-owned Dodge and Earnhardt's brother-in-law. "It's the place his father started. It's home.

"I know he's really looking forward to his new challenge and there's a lot of high points to consider. But when Dale walks away from the No. 8 car for the last time, that's a moment in history and no matter what, it will never be the same. Just like Richard (Childress) changing the No. 3. It will never be the same."

In 2000, Earnhardt entered the Winston Cup Series a bleached-blonde rebel with a cause — trying to prove to everyone, including himself, that he belonged. And he did, from that first career win at Texas Motor Speedway in his 12th start to upstaging his father six weeks later in an event custom-designed for the Intimidator — The Winston.

"The biggest thing with Junebug racing was he was trying to impress his dad," Eury Jr. said. "He was trying to get his dad's attention. And he definitely got it. It was sombering that he didn't get to spend any longer with his dad. Those were all special.

"The team that me and Dale Jr. were trying to impress was Dale Earnhardt's, and I think we did that before he passed. The Winston, that was Big E's race. That's the way he looked at it, and we went there and won it."

Earnhardt will always cherish the 2000 May races at Lowe's Motor Speedway — what the Kannapolis, N.C.-clan considers its home track.

"How we won the Winston as rookies, battling back and just dominating the end of that race," Earnhardt said, "that was such a surprise to us. We had no tricks up our sleeves. We were so shocked and nervous to be in the event.

"I can recall exactly how that felt, to even have been competing for third with my dad at one point was amazing to me. And then to go the next week and run the (Coca-Cola) 600 and challenge him a little bit for the lead, that was awesome."

Elledge recalls "the joy and excitement" shared between father and son as the No. 8 team blossomed.

"Texas, the Winston, those are the moments that helped June gain acceptance from his dad," Elledge said. "You could see that gleam in his eye. You could see how very proud his dad was of him. Those moments will never be reproduced.

"It's his accomplishments and the groundwork that his dad laid that has made Junior one of the most popular figures in sports."

What appeared to be the cousins' greatest victory at the time would pale to their eventual accomplishments at the track where Dale Sr. was the master — Daytona. At a track that produced so much grief for the Juniors, the driver and crew chief united to win the Pepsi 400, the first race at the track following Dale Sr's death. Not satisfied with that cathartic experience, the duo returned to Victory Lane again at Daytona, capturing the checkered flag in the 2004 season opening Daytona 500.

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