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No one wants Earnhardt's job

SONOMA - So I wanted to know what it’s like to be Dale Earnhardt Jr. so I interviewed Rickie Kyle and Tony Fripp Friday, two men who work for NASCAR but, you would think, are about as far from being a celebrity as Casper The Friendly Ghost is from a suntan.

Fripp drives one of NASCAR’s seven haulers, his containing a conference room and a kitchen for NASCAR staff. Kyle is an engine inspector. Fripp and Kyle are necessary, important people for the sport. People gotta eat. People need engines. Good jobs. Solid jobs. Hardly, though, the kind of resumes that would put them on Jay Leno.

“I have been asked for my autograph,” Kyle said.

“Me, too,” said Fripp.

If they wear a NASCAR shirt, both said, they are stopped, quizzed by people with eyes wide open and mouths agape. Fripp said cars will speed past him on an interstate, get to the next rest area, jump out of their cars, run to the freeway’s edge, then wave and take pictures. Kyle said he limits his NASCAR-insignia apparel when he travels, just to reduce the attention. They feel like celebrities, the autographs, the fawning, the general hub-bub and they love it.

So I asked them, given the taste they have been given of fame, if they would be like to be Dale Earnhardt Jr., the 36-year old who has earned $65,706,001 as a driver?

They both shook their heads.

“I really feel sorry for him,” Fripp said.

Kyle said he has seen Junior leave his hauler through a side door, non-descript baseball cap pulled down over his face, with non-descript sunglasses, non-descript jeans and non-descript white shirt working as his camouflage, his head down, plowing invisibly through the crowd.

Junior poses the most interesting conundrum for NASCAR, and maybe in all sports.

Junior has been NASCAR’s most popular driver for the last eight years — yet he is a shy, private person. He told the New York Times last year that he’s had some of his happiest days when he worked in the garage as a mechanic. But with a last name of Earnhardt, what choice did he have? There Dale Earnhardt Jr.! Bank teller! Uh, don’t think so.

“All of us (drivers) have pressure on our shoulders,” A.J. Allmendinger said. “But for Dale? I don’t know how he does it.”

Or put it this way: The son of the late great, never-to-be-duplicated Dale Earnhardt hasn’t won a race in 108 starts covering three years. Pressure? That’s not pressure. That’s trying to breathe with a sock in your mouth. Junior needs to exhale. NASCAR needs to exhale. A Junior victory is a NASCAR victory.

“It (Earnhardt victory) would be the best thing to happen to the sport,” said Hall of Famer Ned Jarrett. “It’s just a matter of time.”

You might even say NASCAR needs a Junior victory more than the driver. Attendance is down. Major sponsor Red Bull just announced it’s leaving the sport after this season, two teams to fend for themselves. Junior appears poised to cooperate. After three years with Rick Hendrick that produced seasonal finishes of 12th, 25th and 21st and plenty of second guessing, Earnhardt looks to be on the upswing. Third in points Earnhardt told his sponsor’s website last week that his performance “still shows I have a good reason to be in this sport.” Positive as that comment is, sad indeed he had to utter it in his 13th NASCAR year.

“But Dale is such a good guy,” Kasey Kahne said, “that people root for him. If I can’t win a race, why not Junior?”

That is how much Earnhardt is liked. Even his competitors root for him. That is at the core of his appeal. Besides his pedigree Earnhardt has been open and honest. He competes fairly, dust-ups are infrequent. He doesn’t deflect responsibility. He doesn’t blame others. He doesn’t snap off answers. The worst it gets is this: In his 15-minute media session as the back of his hauler Friday, Earnhardt didn’t look happy, didn’t respond eagerly. He is having his best season since 2006 yet his answers and his face showed none of that.

“He’s not a prima donna,” Jarrett said.

And for that, I’m with Kahne and the rest of the brotherhood. I want him to win. I’ll root for the good guy, the stand-up guy. But like Rickie Kyle and Tony Fripp, I wouldn’t want to be him. I would want to live a life to my expectations, not everyone else’s. I wouldn’t want to live a life that’s not my own.

Marcus Thames gets ready to take right field, where he filled in for Magglio Ordonez in this game.

While Marcus didn’t have the best day at the plate, going 1 for 4, his one hit was one of the deepest blasts I’ve seen at Comerica Park. He hit a solo homer of Dice-K in the bottom of the third that almost hit the camera stand in centerfield. The scoreboard said it was 440’, but I couldn’t believe that it was deeper than that.

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Sunday, July 8, 2007

Detroit Tigers vs
Boston Red Sox

Comerica Park, Detroit, MI

Final Score: Detroit 6, Boston Red Sox 5