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.
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.”
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?
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