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Cosmic forces Earnhardt Jr. receives well-deserved karmic payback
Well, knock me over with a feather! Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins the Pepsi 400. Will wonders never cease? Can you imagine the pressure Junior must have been feeling? Never mind the fact he hadn't won a race in more than a year. Or even that, oh, every race fan in the world was hoping like hell he'd win Saturday night. Pressure? What pressure? And let's not forget how hard it is to win any Winston Cup race, let alone this one. I mean, aren't Cup drivers always telling us how much luck is involved in any win? Now just put yourself in Junior's shoes ... as overwhelming as any Cup race might be, just imagine running the first race back at the track where your father died a few months before. If I'm him, I'm thinking I've had a good day if I get out of there unscathed, much less with a top 10. But a win? Forget it. But, in a piece of wonderfully poetic justice, Junior not only wins the 400, he owns the thing, leading 116 of the 160 laps. Even more dramatically, Little E rekindles memories of his father by carrying himself from sixth to first after the race's final restart on lap 154 -- within two laps! -- apparently by dint of pure determination. Well, as it happens, there are those who just can't accept the beauty of the moment, a few who simply can't accept that Junior won fair and square. No, these observers are implying that something nefarious was at work Saturday night. These aspersions might be cast aside were they the work of a disreputable organ like the National Enquirer. But as it happens, these charges were given credence by some of our country's most revered and most-read publications. The august, staid, old gray lady herself, The New York Times, dignified the talk in its Monday paper. "Old timers note, cynically yet approvingly," wrote Robert Lipsyte, "that a car that should win -- because a wrong needs to be righted, an old champion needs to be rewarded, the fans need satisfaction -- often does, particularly at Daytona, a track owned by NASCAR ..." And while Monday's USA TODAY was somewhat less overt in its language, it did allow that Saturday's race bore unmistakable similarities to one of the World Wrestling Federation's famously scripted matches. Is race-fixing unknown in the annals of Winston Cup racing? Yes -- well, that is, for example, if you are willing to suspend disbelief and accept the fact at Richard Petty simply managed to rediscover his magic when he won his 200th race at Daytona in 1984. Sure. Never mind the fact that it was the Fourth of July, never mind the fact that The King was, oh, 17 years past his best and never mind that, oh, yes, the president of the United States of American just happened to be in attendance! OK, so it just so happens that it made a great story, one that portrayed NASCAR in all its glory and played beautifully on the evening news -- every last piece of evidence is purely circumstantial. And so too is the evidence that Junior's win was manufactured, Well, that is if you're willing to overlook the fact that the crew chief of a driver currently ranked among the top 10 in points was heard telling his driver Saturday to ignore Little E because, effectively, Junior's driving a bigger plate than the rest of us. What of it? More sour grapes. Are we to believe those are simply the words of a jealous rival or perhaps the informed opinion of a knowledgeable observer? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know that it's downright sacrilegious to suggest that there is more to Earnhardt Jr.'s win than meets the eye. I also know that I don't really care. If ever there was a person who deserved a little karmic payback, it's Little E.
Stephen Thomas covers NASCAR for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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