Consider this: Earlier this week, Earnhardt was asked during a press conference at Daytona if there was a connection between the decline in TV ratings for NASCAR last season and his on-track performance.
He didn’t win a race last season and missed the Chase for the Championship.
“I can’t tell you whether that’s why the television ratings are down,” Earnhardt said. “It would be nice to think you had that kind of influence, but at the same time, I don’t want to be the downfall or the reason for it.”
The question originated from a comment NASCAR chairman Brian France made in November about TV ratings, when he noted as part of a larger discussion that it hurt when one of the sport’s biggest names wasn’t in the 2007 Chase for the Championship.
“If I can get back into victory lane I know my fans will be excited about that,” Earnhardt said, adding he wasn’t comfortable taking credit one way or another.
Sure a strong performance by the sport’s most popular driver has to be good, but his fate can’t be tied to the health of all of NASCAR.
Can it?
Yet, he’s carrying some of that, too.
Earnhardt has lived in a pressure cooker for years.
He was born into this. When he followed his famous father into the sport - a sport Dale Sr. dominated - he was consistently compared to the old man.
Then he had to step up and be the man, not just a son, after Dale Sr. died in a last-lap crash at Daytona in 2001. New York Daily News
| 
|