Checkered Past

That doesn't brighten the ol' job security picture, does it?

I don't know how it works up at Dale Earnhardt Inc. in nearby Mooresville, N.C. ...

Oh, that's right, we all do: Not very well.

But I'm talking about the ways a guy might go about keeping a job right now. You know, job security.

I've tried that trashing the boss thing and it hasn't worked out all that well for me. But I've learned and moved on. And I happen to like the guy I currently answer to and wouldn't trash him. Even if he had a Jerry Barber signature fairway wood in his hands.

Tony Eury Sr., on the other hand, bears the look of a man who's grown tremendously weary of the job he has as director of competition for Teresa Earnhardt's organization.

There's been wide-open talk of Dale Earnhardt Jr. - a.k.a. NASCAR's biggest star - leaving the organization his late father founded and led to prominence. Many hope Junior will land at Richard Childress Racing. And I'm in agreement that such a move would be huge.

There's talk that Michael Waltrip, too, is looking.

Judging by Eury Sr.'s remarks at Daytona International Speedway on Thursday, I'd say he either has something pretty good lined up or has figured out that he has enough cash to keep him comfortable for a little while.

Because I think the Widow Earnhardt ain't gonna be real happy with what he's saying about her, Richie Gilmore, Steve Hmiel and the rest of the leadership at DEI.

But that's assuming she cares enough about running a top-level NASCAR race team to get riled, isn't it?

We're everywhere

I've always believed NASCAR's estimate of 75 million fans to be a tad on the generous side. Same with the figures touted in the economic-impact studies you see when a multibillion-dollar corporation is trying to get the taxpaying public to foot the bill for a new track or hall fo fame.

But there's no denying there are a lot of us out here. And it sometimes surprises people where we can pop up.

Courtney Craven, a nice lady I've met through my work with ThatsRacin.com, tells a story that illustrates the point.

She made another trip to New York City a couple of weekends ago, self-proclaimed city girl that she is, to visit family. While there, she took in the Sunday matinee of a Broadway play. (She probably told me what play; sorry, but I didn't file that information to the internal Checkered Past hard drive.)

And during intermission, a patron sitting right in front of her pulled out a cell phone and called her husband, who was taking in the Nextel Cup race at Michigan Speedway.

So C.C., also a self-proclaimed Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan, was able to get an update on how her driver was doing.

Other than that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?

Her story reminded me of my visit to Pinehurst No. 2 and the U.S. Open a couple of weeks ago. It was really cool to get the chance to even be there and to see some of the world's best golfers playing one of the world's best courses.

Never mind that the USGA set the course up to play very hard and to bring out the very worst in the world's best golfers. It was almost as if Humpy Wheeler had turned his ill-fated "levigation" process loose on the place, but I digress ...

My guest and I found ourselves walking past the State of North Carolina hospitality tent (who knew that state officials enjoy many of the same costly perks as the corporate folks at major golf tournaments?). As I shared a couple of one-liners about Gov. Mike Easley's apparent difficulty behind the wheel of a race car and how he nonetheless insists on climbing into one to help promote the state's motorsports industry, I noticed a gentleman walk out of the state tent and stop right in his tracks.

"I never thought I'd hear people talking about racing at the U.S. Open," he said, extending a hand. It was Ed McLean, who heads up the North Carolina Motorsports Association, the lobbying group that works on behalf of the racing industry.

As he and I agreed, and as Courtney's story also attests, racing fans don't always fit many of the sterotypes and there's no telling where you're going to find us.

The "Big Picture" can wait

Jeff Gordon says he doesn't care about points. Right. And I don't care about traffic numbers on ThatsRacin.com.

"I don't even care about the championship," Gordon maintained Sunday at Sonoma, where a 33rd-place finish put him even further behind points leader Greg Biffle and in greater danger of missing the Chase for the Championship this fall.

"All I care about is getting our stuff going and getting ourselves to be in races where were can put ourselves in contention to win."

That, naturally, would be the immediate concern.

But, as occasional blogging buddy Andy Shain points out, Gordon is not all that far out of it. A few good race days - for a change - and Gordon sneaks back into the top 10 and is racing for another championship.

Then, one would assume, the points and championship could again be found in the driver's "care" folder.

Joker wild?

There have been rumors about Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s future in stock car racing almost as long as he's been carrying the banner for Dale Earnhardt Inc.

They've grown a lot louder this season, one of obvious discontent in Mooresville, N.C., and everywhere there are Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans. Which is to say, simply, everywhere.

And now suggestions that Earnhardt Jr. could bolt from DEI  - and even join Richard Childress Racing  - have come out of the basement and are going mainstream.

That's a fine story line, the kind many NASCAR fans fitfully dream about.

Motorsports writer David Newton quotes Richard Childress as saying the door is open. Well, sure it is. And the door at the Childress place in Welcome isn't the only one with a big ol' welcome sign hanging on it.

Is there a team owner out there who wouldn't welcome the sport's most popular driver and his sponsors?

What Dale Earnhardt Jr. does on Sunday at Sonoma, for the rest of the 2005 season and beyond will be big news.

Heck, it's even pretty big news when he runs an exhibition go-kart race against an 11-year-old.

So you've got to wonder while watching the same three or four guys winning most of the Nextel Cup races this season which will be the bigger story: the second round of NASCAR's Chase for the Championship or Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s odyssey?

We might just find out if that driver doesn't have a seat at the table when the Chase cards are dealt in September.

How many cars does it take?

"I don't see what the big deal is about only six cars running the U.S. Grand Prix," our friend Chad Sitler deadpans. "Add the Roush and Hendrick cars up and you don't have many more that can actually win a Cup race lately."

And I thought I was in charge of the one- and two-liners around here.

Chad - a.k.a. Mr. Scary 5-wood - is right, at least on one level. The starkest difference on Sunday was that the cars most capable of winning the U.S. Grand Fraud were among those parked as the "race" began. At Michigan, the cars most capable of winning the race were right where everyone expected them to be, at the front.

NASCAR Nextel Cup racing has a problem, but as Sunday's debacle at Indianapolis Motor Speedway unfolded - and as it plays out early this week in the world press  - this much is clear: Formula One would dearly love to have NASCAR's problem.

It's a problem with which Formula One is very familiar. Until this season, Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari had won everything in sight, year after boring year. Sure, every now and again Rubens Barrichello, Ferrari's No. 2 driver, got the win.

Everyone else, just like the non-Hendrick and non-Roush teams in NASCAR, subsisted on the leftovers.

That was hard to take in a racing series where tire budgets alone would make even Brian France blush. It's also a series in which there are many heroes of Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s status.

Earnhardt Jr., whose popularity in these United States is unquestioned even if is team and talent are, is a virtual nobody in Brazil, where Barrichello is adored even if he rarely wins.

The Scots, God bless 'em, love David Coulthard. And what's he done lately? Fernando Alonso, who has done quite a lot lately, is a monster celebrity in Spain.

And MIchael Schumacher? Dang-near tied with Tiger Woods in earnings worldwide and dearly loved in Deutschland.

But the politics and nepotism of NASCAR pale in comparison to the Machiavellian machinations common to world championship racing. And, for us, that's good. But is our sport "trending" that way?

The people behind the F1 teams carry far too much weight. We're not talking just the "team principals," but the manufacturers and advertisers as well. More than once, when things haven't gone their way, they're threatened to start a rival series to Formula One and may well eventually do so.

How CART-like is that?

NASCAR doesn't exactly cater to the automakers - can you say "common template?" - but maintains and enjoys a good, solid working relationship with them. As for the advertisers ... well there's your catering.

With the team owners? There's your growing influence.

And it's one that will bear watching.

OK, you can write off F1 in the United States for our lifetimes

Don't know if you follow Formula One. I do a little. And up until Sunday I was rooting hard for the day we might hear the "Star Spangled Banner" played once again when an American won a race that counted toward the world driving championship.

But they've screwed the pooch now, and not just with me.

I don't think we've seen anything this stupid in racing since the old CART series drivers decided Texas Motor Speedway was too fast after all - two hours before they were to race.

The tire issue that has made Sunday's running of the U.S. Grand Prix an absolute mockery is a complicated one. The world motorsports press will beat both sides of the issue to death in the coming days and weeks, I'm sure.

And there will be as many denials as there are smiles in some of Europe's racing capitals as the debate rages in the media.

But, whatever the case, whoever's at fault and all of that won't matter. Formula One's efforts to attract more American fans just took a big roundhouse to the head.

And hopes of getting anyone other than the so-called racing purists among us any more excited about F1 just got parked right along with the cars at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Tuning in to Channel 8

Thanks at least a million and change to the good people who do public relations work for Anheuser-Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. for sending this along. Pretty rich stuff.

Best Radio Chatter:
Dale Jr. remained calm, but frustrated, after a second flat tire caused a fairly ominous fire and damage to the left-front corner of the car.
Dale Jr: “Flat tire. Left front’s flat.”
Steve Hmiel (crew chief): “10-4. Gotcha.”
Jimmy Kitchens (spotter): “There’s a lotta sparks. It looks like it’s down on the front sway bar.”
Hmiel: “The left front’s not turnin.’ Let’s get those fire extinguishers…. (to Junior) Do you have brakes? Put that fire out first. Put out the fire… you alright in there June?”
Dale Jr: “’Bout as good as I could be, I guess….”
Hmiel: “Just makin’ sure you’re still breathin’ alright in there.”
Dale Jr.: “What’s cutting the left fronts down?”
Hmiel: “We don’t know. We aren’t crazy on air pressures or camber. It’s the fourth one so far today.”
Dale Jr.: “I’ll ride it to the third flat tire, but then you can get somebody else to get in here for the fourth…”

And the candidates are?

Lap 98, while five laps behind…
Dale Jr: “The 21 (Ricky Rudd) has another flat tire…”
Hmiel: “If ya think ya got one, c’mon on in.”
Dale Jr.: “NO! The 21! The 21 has another flat!”
Hmiel: “Oh, OK. Sorry. I’m just nervous.”
Dale Jr.: “Heh. Yeah, me too.”

Good thing they're the only ones, huh?

Poke-oh, no!

Just my imagination (runnin ' away with me ... ) or did members of the Fox TV crew change their tune a lot as the race weekend rolled on?

On Friday evening, there was booth banter that sounded almost revolutionary. NASCAR's rule change limiting drivers' shifting options wasn't getting - how shall we say? -rave reviews.

An even more boring race at a track already reknowned for boring races was on the precipitous verge of prediction.

But by pre-race time, they'd whipped those thoughts around and were cheerleading like it was homecoming.

Doesn't look like sandbagging to me

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was 34th fastest in Friday's first Nextel Cup practice session at Pocono Raceway.

At first glance, it might seem as if NASCAR's most popular driver is still struggling as teams prepare for Sunday's Pocono 500. But then he was 39th fastest in the final practice.

And seeming is believing. These guys are having trouble.

Michael Waltrip, Earnhardt Jr.'s teammate at Dale Earnhardt Inc., was only 24th fastest in the first round of practice on Friday. But he picked it up to 10th on the chart in the day's second round.

In Earnhardt Jr.'s old cars. And with his former crew.

Practice doesn't mean much really, though. A lot of guys have "won" practice, then stunk up the place when the race started.

And vice-versa.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s old man used to be nothing less than a master at looking pretty danged routine in practice, then kicking everyone's butt when the race started. Sometimes he'd just run an ordinary-looking  lap or two in "Happy Hour" and park it.

Of course he'd just grin that kind of way he did when somebody asked if he'd been sandbagging.

My apologies to the red army, but that doesn't look like what's going on here.

Fan photos, fun photos

On a slightly less serious note ...

The NASCAR Hall of Fame boondoggle is very big, very serious  news and will be for quite some time to come. That won't change, either, wherever the new hall of fame lands after much careful, thoughtful and no doubt prayerful consideration by the NASCAR brass.

The Shane Himiel mess, too, hasn't left the headlines.

How many attorneys at law do you suppose share the current NASCAR view that Mr. Hmiel has no appeal options left after his second substance abuse issue and subsequent parking?

Strictly on the fun side, though - and not that I see anything wrong with the Shane Hmiel jokes making the rounds - please see ThatsRacin.com's fan photos.

We're not talking photo essay contest winners here, although some fans shoot every bit as well as a few of the professionals we know. Some are e-mailing us their images of race cars, the drivers, even flyovers before races. Those we've got, thanks. Plenty of them.

Our favorites and the ones we're after are those fans send of themselves, their family or group. The grins are big and the fun being had, obviously, is the real deal.

That's the side of stock car racing we like most, the fun of it.

Sure, it's fun to debate the many issues - good and bad, even the tragic, career destroying ones - but it's really hard to beat the blast fans have when the race is on or is about to be. Same with the ones we see of fans visiting their favorite team's shop, posing with one of their favorite drivers or team owners.

I think it's great to take racing seriously, and I do so regularly. That doesn't mean that we - as race fans - need to take ourselves so seriously all of the time.

So, next time you and yours are deeply involved in not taking yourselves seriously in a racing context, shoot an image for us to share with other like-minded fans. Just click on that link right there on our home page.

We'd appreciate it.