Earnhardt Jr. sheds big shot for team-player mentality

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (right) was told to get rid of his trademark attire and to start tucking in his shirt, like his fellow Hendrick drivers. AP

By Bruce Martin, SI.com

CONCORD, North Carolina -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. has always been able to steal the spotlight as NASCAR's most popular driver and his latest concern is not about upholding that tradition. Rather, subduing Earnhardt's tendency to overshadow his new teammates at Hendrick Motorsports remains at the forefront of his, and his team's, priority list.

Earnhardt's arrival at NASCAR Sprint Cup, racing's most successful team has created a unique situation where a driver with far fewer accomplishments receives more attention than some of the sport's greatest drivers.

Jimmie Johnson's bid for a third-straight Cup championship and Jeff Gordon's quest for a fifth series championship have become sidebar events to the main story of Earnhardt's first season with NASCAR's super team.

And that has left Earnhardt, the icon of the sport in terms of popularity and cult-hero status, feeling uneasy.

"There have been a lot of references to me coming over here, and it has taken over the headlines," Earnhardt said. "I'm uncomfortable with that. I don't want those guys to resent me for that. I'm just trying to come in here and do well."

Earnhardt is sensitive to the issue and that has him taking a deferential role at his new employer.

He is cognizant of the fact that, by the numbers, he doesn't deserve to be the star attraction when compared to Johnson and Gordon.

Johnson owns 33 race victories and two series titles in just seven seasons. And last season along, he won 10 races last season to become the first driver with double-digit victories in the Cup since Gordon won 13 in 1998.

Gordon has 81 race victories, along with his four Cup titles, spread across a career that began with the final race of the 1992 season. Last season, he picked up six wins and finished second behind Johnson.

While Earnhardt boasts 17 race victories in nine seasons, he doesn't have a single Cup championship to his name. In fact, his highest finish in the standings was third (2003), but he finished 19th in 2005 and 16th last season.

And last year, Earnhardt was winless, extending a slump that start after his Richmond win may 6, 2006. Even Casey Mears, the forgotten driver at Hendrick, scored his first victory last year in the Coca-Cola 600.

There's good reason why Earnhardt feels a bit uneasy. Reporters continue to crowd around him like the Paparazzi to Britney Spears, while Johnson and Gordon are seemingly pushed aside in the public conscience.

"I don't want to give them the opinion that I'm trying to steal the limelight when those guys are deserving of it," Earnhardt said. "Jimmie is a champion, has been the champion the last two years. The big story going into the season should be whether he is going to three-peat.

"For me to have not won a race last year and be a page ahead of him in the newspaper, it shouldn't be that way. That's not my intention. I just want to come in here and work and have them glad that I'm here and to have me as their teammate."

Now there are days when Gordon and Johnson will be glad to have Earnhardt taking the focus away from them because it gives them a chance to fly under the radar -- a rarity for drivers of that magnitude.

Earnhardt hopes to shed the image he had at Dale Earnhardt Inc., where he was built up as NASCAR's "Rock Star." He hung out with all the "cool people," wore his cap backwards and dressed as if he was going to a rave.

That approach, and attitude, made him popular among the fans and sponsors, but led to bitter resentment from his stepmother Teresa Earnhardt, the team owner of DEI who took charge after her husband, Dale Earnhardt's, fatal crash on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

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