King Of The Mountain; Dale Earnhardt Jr.

By Mark Young

Now let me preface this by saying that clearly Jeff Gordon's dominance of late should put him on top of our mountain here in Turn 3.  His performance, and luck, yesterday showed the stuff champions are made of.  HOWEVER,  the announcement Dale Jr. made on Thursday proclaiming his free-agency for 2008 clearly puts him high atop the mountain and in command of his own destiny.

Dale did what many people expected he would do last week by saying he was leaving DEI after this season.  I figured he would but somehow held out hope that the family would work things out and grant him control of the racing decisions to be made there.  But alas, greed and stubbornness took the place of common sense leaving the business Dale Sr. started in disarray.

Budweiser is going where Junior goes, and with the exception of Gibbs and Petty, making this the most potentially lucrative free-agent combination in the history of NASCAR.  Who would not want to have the most popular driver in the sport and one of the most recognizable sponsors available?  Merchandise sales, combined with a big check from Bud equal a very large amount of funds to invest in personnel and R&D work to put  a team in Championship contention.

State your case against my decision to put Dale on top of the mountain, but I really don't think there has ever been a driver so in control of their destiny.  The big question is will his next decision of who to drive for be the right choice or should he have ridden out the storm at DEI?