Driven to succeed

NEW YORK – He failed to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup, failed to win even one race, suffered through the second-worst season of his career, and yet here was Dale Earnhardt Jr., in New York City on Thursday, taking home one of the biggest awards of the season.

Granted, it was the Chex Most Popular Driver Award, which is more about fan appeal and loyalty than on-track performance, but Earnhardt still made the effort to pick up his fifth consecutive MPDA.

Dressed in a natty-looking suit – not a firesuit, mind you, but a nice button-down blue-grey outfit with an accompanying shirt and tie – Earnhardt was on hand to accept the MPDA. But after doing that, Earnhardt unloaded on everything from his step-mother to leaving his teammate at Dale Earnhardt Inc. to his frustrating 2007 campaign.

Among the highlights:

On his relationship with step-mother Teresa Earnhardt: "The last time me and Teresa talked, we were still in contract negotiations at DEI. We had a meeting at the office with Max (Siegel) and my sister (Kelley Earnhardt-Elledge) talking about one of their proposals and that was the last time we talked."

Teresa never said goodbye or wished you well? "We haven't talked. Neither one of us."

Is your relationship with Teresa over? "I don't think it's a closed chapter. I don't want to sound like I'm writing her off for the rest of my life. I want to do right by myself. What's important right now is what's important, and that's what I'm going to focus on. If that's something that I have time to fix down the road, then I'll fix it."

Did you surprise your team members when you decided to leave DEI?: "I don't think anybody ever thought I would truly leave, but … they knew I was unhappy and some of them knew why I was unhappy. They probably knew before I even had to explain it to them why I was leaving, and they couldn't fault me."

With you starting a new chapter in your racing career, will there be any personal changes you make to yourself or your personality?: "I'm sure there's lots of things I'd love to do better. I'm getting older and losing patience and starting to get snappy with my employees and stuff like that. My sister, I don't have as much patience for things me and her discuss. (There are times) I sound like an (expletive). But I'm fortunate for the people I have working with me and helping me. I cannot do this without them, and it's important that I treat them the way they need to be treated. So, that's one of the things I'm going to focus on next year."

Are you going to be more corporate, in a sense, because that seems to be the philosophy at Hendrick Motorsports?: "Nah, I ain't trying that hard. I like to have fun and I love to race cars. Rick's a lot like me. He's been from the bottom to the top. He can appreciate the type of person I am, just like he can appreciate the person Jeff and Jimmie are, as well as Casey. I don't think he's going to ask me to do anything like that and I don't think I'm going to need to do anything like that. I hopefully will get better at handling myself in front of the media."

Reflecting back upon 2007: "I don't feel like I ran well enough. I don't want to sit here and the only memory I have is how badly we ran last year. I want to get out there and get a top-five and feel like that's where I belong. … I'm ticked off we didn't win a race. That's going to bother me for a while. That bothers me every day. I think about it every day. Otherwise, I was proud of my performance and my team's performance. I was proud of their work ethic, but not winning still bothers me."

More specifically on how he handled all the disappointment, drama and frustration in 2007: "I felt like it was a hard year. I was proud of how I handled it. Me, Mike Davis (JR Motorsports publicity director), my people, the group that I put together, we did those press conferences, we set it up, we knocked it down, we put the puzzle together ourselves. It could have been a disaster and stupid and ugly and everything, but it went as good as it could have went. So, I'm proud of that because for the most part, we were in a tough position but handled it well for as little experience we had handling those types of things."

Rick Hendrick said he's going to take the pressure off you by saying you're not expected to win in your first season at Hendrick Motorsports: "Bull crap. I'm expecting to win every year I'm in this sport. I'm an Earnhardt. I'm deeply disappointed in being winless. I'm shocked and that's why I want to race tomorrow. I don't want to be winless all through the off-season. I want to get one in there. But, I expect to win next year. I expect to win when I get in the car. I'm good enough to win and I expect to be winning. There's no excuses."

On new teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon: "There's envy and good competition. I'm a fan of Jeff and Jimmie's and how well they do. They know that. They'd be foolish not to think any driver wouldn't be envious. But there's no jealousy between us. Jeff's accomplished everything he's wanted to accomplish. He races now because he enjoys it. When that's gone, Jeff be gone. But, he doesn't need to accomplish any more. He doesn't need to win any more awards. He's done everything. … I know that Jeff and Jimmie are pretty competitive in how they race each other, how they feel about each other and how they lose to each other."

How will you fit in with Jeff and Jimmie?: "I don't know how I'll fit in with Jeff and Jimmie. I don't feel like it's anything to worry about. Those guys want to help me and I want to help them if I can help them. Tony Jr. is going to help everybody and they're going to help Tony Jr. It's not necessarily that if we don't hang out on the boat and fish in the deep sea, it doesn't mean we're not going to be good teammates. I don't think so. … We all have a great respect for each other and I'm excited to get that working relationship together because of the respect. I think, hopefully, I'll receive what I'm giving because I'm going to give a lot and am very determined. Hopefully, that goes both ways."

Did he learn something from the high-profile battle he had with his stepmother earlier in the season before he decided to leave DEI for Hendrick Motorsports?: "The media is no place to dish your business and all your bad vibes and all your bad thoughts."

On driving for Rick Hendrick and whether he has anything to prove: "Rick's going to be awesome as a person and a great car owner. We both feel like we have a lot to prove. I know I've got a lot to prove, and he shouldn't have anything to prove, but he's feeling pressure. Tony Jr.'s feeling pressure. There's going to be a lot of pressure and there's no way to escape it. We're just going to have to deal with it. We've always dealt with it pretty good and I think we'll deal with it good. We'll go out and get that first top-five and hopefully the wins will come. When you're winning or running good, you don't feel all the strain and the weight of the world watching you."

On winning the MPDA: "I like that award and it means a lot to me. It's a coveted award. … It's very hard to win. I never thought or anticipated that I'd be winning this award. There's a lot of guys who would be proud to have it and I'm proud to come up here every year to pick it up."

On how his late father's legacy and popularity helped him: "It still can be tough at times. Even at the age of 33, there's pitfalls and things and people that are bad with you, and they still associate with you because of your father only and you have to be careful of that. My dad gets a lot of credit for everything I ever do, like winning (the MPDA). I gained all his fans, the majority of his fans, I gained 'em. I got an instant fan base and I'll never forget that. I'll never assume that I created or managed to build this fan base on my own. That would be ridiculous. Everybody knows the truth and to me, I'm getting all the Most Popular Driver Awards (my dad) probably should have been winning all them years. Maybe it's just a little bit of payback."

Are you anxious or excited about getting going? "Yeah, I want to start now. I want to race tomorrow, the Daytona 500."

Veteran motorsports writer Jerry Bonkowski is Yahoo! Sports' NASCAR columnist. Send Jerry a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Updated on Thursday, Nov 29, 2007 6:07 pm, EST

Email to a Friend | View Popular