finished second in the championship standings while driving for Richard Childress Racing-yes, he owned one NASCAR team while racing for another-and that performance only ballooned expectations for the following year. It was the perfect setup for high-profile failure, but Junior instead capitalized on this great inheritance, winning two races and just missing out on Rookie of the Year honors. began racing full-time in NASCAR’s premier league in 2000-after claiming consecutive championships one level down in the Busch Series-it was with the family operation known as Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI). One couldn’t overstate the expectations that came with sharing a name with a man many believe to be the greatest racing driver who ever lived. His bigger challenge was the baggage that accompanied his particular set of skills. It wasn’t that he didn’t have talent, as evinced by his 26 career victories, including a pair of Daytona 500 triumphs in 20. In some ways it’s a miracle that Earnhardt Jr. The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake David Brooks It’s time for somebody else to get in that car and get out of it what they can.” Speaking with the media Friday, Earnhardt Jr. Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 in Homestead, Florida, will be his last professional race. But after almost three decades at the wheel, his long road trip will roll to a stop. The memory persists even though Junior would go on to forge his own formidable NASCAR career. A healthy percentage of fans that follow stock-car racing will always remember Junior as the smirking towhead grilling his mustachioed old man in a 1990 post-race interview: “Are you gonna give me some money when we get home?” Even in the throes of victory, Earnhardt tried to remain the responsible parent. The racing world had dubbed the latter The Intimidator, born from his habit of methodically stalking his rivals on the racetrack. That infantilizing can be partly blamed on his boyish good looks and rascally charm, though most of it has to do with his late father being a seven-time Winston Cup champion. is in every way a full-grown man-43 years old with a reddish beard sporting patches of gray-but in NASCAR circles he shall forever be thought of as Junior.
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