It’s good that Dale Earnhardt Jr. now has the maturity to admit his past mistakes. At the same time, it’s a shame that no one was able to get through to the NASCAR Cup Series driver in 2004.
That’s the year Earnhardt’s ambivalence toward his job may have cost him a series championship that would have been a stepping stone to true racing greatness.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won six races in 2004, but not the championship
The combination of the family name and his back-to-back Xfinity Series championships made Dale Earnhardt Jr. a natural to go full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series in 2000. He won at Texas Motor Speedway and Richmond in the first 11 races and was on his way to a long career.
After finishing 16eeighth and 11e in points with seven wins in the first three seasons, the son of the seven-time series champion looked to make his breakthrough in 2003. Earnhardt won in Talladega and Phoenix, while showing enough consistency throughout the rest of the schedule to finish in third. finish in points for Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson.
He opened 2004 by winning the Daytona 500 and three weeks later in Atlanta. The championship format had changed off-season to add a playoff element, but Earnhardt seemed poised to compete. He won two more times during the regular season and entered the Chase for the Cup playoffs as the third seed ahead of Jeff Gordon and Johnson.
Although he took two more wins, Earnhardt’s only other finish was better than ninth in the ten-race title, two-thirds. By the time it was over, Kurt Busch had clinched the championship and Earnhardt dropped to fifth.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. admits he didn’t sign up
Kurt Busch won half the races as Dale Earnhardt Jr. that 2004 season, but was ahead of Jimmie Johnson by eight points and Jeff Gordon by 16. Mark Martin and Earnhardt rounded out the top five, but finished way back in the points . Earnhardt never won more than four races in a season or finished higher than fifth in his career again.
The Charlotte News Observer has done a series on prominent North Carolina sports figures, and the nearly two decades since the season that could have given Earnhardt time to reflect and admit that he never reached his full potential in NASCAR. He pointed to a lack of self-discipline after his father’s death in the 2001 Daytona 500.
“I didn’t realize the work ethic had to be as good as I could be. If Dad had lived, he probably would have successfully encouraged me to get better at applying myself. But when he died, there were a lot of emotions involved. I couldn’t choose how I felt.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Earnhardt mentioned the hold that sadness and depression had on him for a time after the Daytona tragedy.
“But I also had this strange, strange feeling that I was liberated from a limitation or some kind of mental bond,” he added. “It was scary. I could make my own choices in life, but Dad was always a ceiling to protect me. He wouldn’t let me get too crazy.”
The NASCAR star chose video games over sharpening his racing skills
With his father gone, Dale Earnhardt Jr. on his sister, Kelley Earnhardt Miller, to keep a close eye on his business interests and obligations, but he lacked someone who could continue to shape his growth as a person. Tony Eury Jr. and his father were strong influences, but they couldn’t be there 24/7.
“He wouldn’t call me at 9am and say, ‘Where are you?'” he said of his uncle. “I did what I wanted to do. I wasn’t aiming to become a better racing driver.”
The man who was repeatedly voted the most popular driver in the sport spent as little time as possible in the shop or on the track.
“I’d play video games on the bus, literally look at my watch and say, ‘Five minutes to practice,'” Earnhardt said. “I can play for a few more minutes. Two minutes to practice. … I could get away with it because I was young, and we had great cars.’”
That lasted until he left the family DEI team in 2008 to spend the last decade of his career at Hendrick Motorsports.
“What I learned by going to Hendrick was ‘the Hendrick Way,’ how to prepare,” he said. “And I thought, ‘Dang, how many more races could I have won…'”
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