Great expectations

By DAVID GREEN

NASCAR's most popular driver teams up with the sport's most powerful team. Pretty amazing stuff. No wonder it's triggering the volume of discussion that it continues to do.

Everybody has his or her own opinion about this, and each one is entitled. My own reaction is a little complex. But in the final analysis, I think the combination is going to be good for both Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Hendrick Motorsports.

My reservations come from a couple of points. One, in the little amount of lower-echelon racing I did, I never wanted to jump on the bandwagon of the top-dog team. I wanted to try to beat that team. I wanted to knock that team off its pedestal. I wanted to do more with less -- pretty much a necessity, since I never had much more than the bare essentials with which to work (and since no top-flight team ever solicited my services as driver).

I became a big fan of Sam Hornish Jr. when he came onto the Indy Car scene, and when Hornish and Panther Racing defeated Helio Castroneves and the powerhouse Team Penske in a thrilling championship battle in 2002, the year Penske switched from CART to the IRL, it was the kind of David versus Goliath stuff that makes for great drama and great sports entertainment.

And so, I was a little disappointed when Hornish joined the Penske organization two years later. I'm not one of those who hate the Penske organization, and I'm still a Hornish fan. I'm thrilled that he got an Indy 500 victory last year. But in my opinion, it would have been so much sweeter -- or, at least, such a better story -- if he'd done it in a Panther Racing car.

For similar reasons, I have such great regard for retired Formula One champion Michael Schumacher. He went to Ferrari not when the glamorous team was at its peak, but rather when it was slumping -- and orchestrated the rebuilding of the team to unprecedented dominance. That has to be just a little bit more satisfying than when you step into a situation that is already dominant, and you merely become another part of the domination.

On the other hand, having the deck seemingly stacked in your favor doesn't always work out so well, either. Pappy Higgins wrote last month about the colossal flop of the supposed "super team" of Darrell Waltrip, crew chief Waddell Wilson and big-splash sponsor Tide laundry detergent 20 years ago.

Ergo, the doubting Thomas comments and the predictions of monumental pressure on Earnhardt Jr. to succeed, now that he's going to be driving for the unchallenged dominant team in NASCAR.

These things are never quite as simple as some people believe them to be. Winning one race, never mind winning 10 out of 14 as the Hendrick team has done so far this year, is not an easy task. Nuclear physics is simple compared to the human and technological dynamics at work in auto racing competition, from the grassroots level right on up to the top of the pyramid.

Statements suggesting that any driver could succeed in a Hendrick car are insulting to the talents of the drivers who have succeeded in those vehicles. It's just not that cut and dried. For those of you who may have watched last weekend's Canadian Grand Prix, consider the dichotomy of the two McLaren-Mercedes drivers. The two-time reigning champion, Fernando Alonso, drove like a clueless rookie. The sensational rookie, Lewis Hamilton, looked like a seasoned, savvy veteran. Both drove the car that is, without argument, the dominant machine on the grand prix circuit this year.

These things we know to be true, even if we don't know all the rest of the story:

• Martin Truex Jr.'s recent victory notwithstanding, DEI has fallen from a level at or near the top of the NASCAR heap to a lower rank.
• Dale Jr. apparently felt the leadership of the team was not headed in the right direction to go about amending that status, and wanted the authority to try his own ideas.
• When he was unable to gain that authority, he decided to move elsewhere.

These things are subject to debate:

• How DEI will fare in 2008 and beyond.
• How Dale Jr. will fare in a Hendrick Motorsports car.

Anybody who thinks it's not going to be very interesting to watch has a concept of intrigue and drama that is vastly different from my own.