Freshrubber Blog

What if the 34 year old decided to just quit? What if, perhaps borne out of frustration, Dale Earnhardt Jr., simply said ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’ It’s happened. In August 1973 during the middle of a Cup race at Talladega, Bobby Isaac, who had won the Cup championship in 1970 and had 37 career wins, pulled into pit road got out of the car and just walked away. What if Earnhardt Jr. decided his time had come? That he just wanted to sit on top of a pit box, watch cars he owned race, and mentor younger drivers. Or owing to the fact that he has more money then some third world countries, he could decide to buy one of the Bahamian Islands, open a tiki bar and live happily ever after. It would mark the first time since 1980 that the name Earnhardt would be absent from a Sprint Cup event. But it certainly would not be the end of the world as we know it. No matter what happens, the Earnhardt name will always be legendary in NASCAR. Dale Earnhardt Sr. gave millions of fans reasons to cheer and engraved his name in the record books by winning seven championships. While his son Earnhardt Jr. may never come close to equaling his fathers success, like it or not, millions of fans who worshipped his father switched their allegiance after Earnhardt Sr.’s untimely death at Daytona in 2001. — NASCAR Examiner

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When the IndyCar Series season ends and Patrick’s contract expires, series founder Tony George and his good friends need to present Patrick with a giant check that lets her write in as many zeroes as she wants. Because she cannot — never, ever, ever — be allowed to jump from this series to NASCAR or Formula One. Ever. If this was, in fact, Patrick’s last Indy 500 as an open-wheel regular, the sport is back in very deep trouble as a niche sport on a second-tier cable network. … If, in the end, Patrick wants to go to NASCAR because of the higher profile, the challenge of it, the raised platform the sport would give her and her brand, then there’s not much the IRL can do no matter how much money it brings to the table. As much as NASCAR is struggling in this economy — and the IRL seems to be holding steady during tough times — the bottom line is, the stock cars run on Fox while the open-wheelers share time on Versus with my hockey games.– Indy Star

David Reutimann won the rain-shortened Coca-Cola 600 for his first victory at NASCAR’s top level