Freshrubber Blog

The pressure is on at Dale Earnhardt Inc., and rumors are swirling about what might happen next to the company founded 12 years ago by the late Dale Earnhardt and to the 400 men and women who work there. The answer? It’s clear and simple — Dale Earnhardt Jr. Teresa Earnhardt, for all she has done for racing and for her husband’s memory, is on the verge of losing everything in these next few weeks. And if General Motors executives let that happen, they too will bear the blame. The Earnhardt name has become as famous and legendary as NASCAR itself, going all the way back to those dusty early days of the late 1970s, when Dale Sr. was still a nobody-going-nowhere before moving on to those brilliant runs through the 1980s and 1990s. And as his car owner, Richard Childress, said the other night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, if Dale Earnhardt Sr. hadn’t died at Daytona in 2001, he probably would have been challenging for a record-breaking eighth NASCAR championship that season after a narrow title loss to Bobby Labonte in 2000. Since moving to Rick Hendrick’s this season after six years at DEI, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has seemed rather disinterested about DEI’s fate, other than to say that he hopes things turn out OK. Now, it might be up to Dale Jr. to step to the plate and make the move to save DEI ? or risk losing an important part of his family’s heritage. — Winston-Salem Journal