Dale Earnhardt Jr. - Driver #8

Copyright 2002 by Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

All rights reserved.

Warner Books, Inc.,

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

First eBook Edition: January 2002

ISBN: 978-0-446-55929-4

To my dad, Dale Earnhardt

Big thanks go to Bill Kentling, who edited, prodded, and encouraged me for months and months while this thing took shape. He deserves some sort of ultimate editor title. I also offer thanks to Harold Hinson, whose photos document Dale Jr.s efforts each weekend, to Richard Abate and Robert Lazar at ICM, and all of my friends and family who suffered through endless e-mails and discussions about each chapter along the way.

Big props to Tim Schuler at Anheuser-Busch, who gets the credit for teaming me with Budweiser and Junior and then giving the OK for this project to go ahead. Thanks to all of the Budweiser sports marketing guys, Sponsor Services, and everyone at Dale Earnhardt Inc., who were nervous about the book but supportive all the same.

The guys on the No. 8 team are the greatest. Im looking forward to watching you guys win championships in the future. And most of all, thanks to Dale Jr. As he says, he lived it, I just typed it. Dude, the future is limitless.

Thanks,

JADE

I hop through the right-side window of the Budweiser Chevrolet race car. Unlike a typical racer that has only a drivers seat, this car has been prepared by the Richard Petty Driving Experience (a leading race-driving schoollike a sports fantasy camp on four wheels) to give fans a feel of what its like to go 160 miles per hour with a professional driver behind the wheel. I am strapped snugly into the passenger seat and take a deep breath.

Today the driver is no mere Petty school instructor, but one of the finest drivers in the world. Dale Earnhardt Jr. gets an ornery grin on his face as he hits the ignition switch and then throws the car into gear. Soon we are hurtling toward the high-banked Turn 1 of Lowes Motor Speedway near Charlotte, North Carolina. From this angle, it looks like we are about to be launched up the side of a three-story building.

Dale Jr. is here today to shoot a segment for a documentary about his life that will soon air on MTV. Before he agreed to participate in the video shoot, he insisted that the Petty school allow him to take several of his buddies for the ride of their lives. I am on that short list of passengers. Through a contract with Anheuser-Busch, my company, fingerprint inc., has been in charge of Dale Jr.s publicity for the past fifteen months. It has been the busiest, and the most eventful, time of my life.

I want you guys to have an appreciation for what I do, Dale Jr. tells us. I think our friendship can have another level if you understand more about what its like out there.

I have that thought in my mind as we careen through the first corner of the 1.5-mile oval track. The G-forces while cornering in a 3,400-pound race car at more than 160 miles per hour are immense. My pelvis is forced downward into the form-fitted racing seat. My head, encased in a helmet that seemed to weigh next to nothing while I was sitting on the wall along pit lane, suddenly feels like it weighs two hundred pounds as it tries to launch itself off of my head and fly out the passenger-side window. While Im trying hard to look cool and relaxed, I have to brace myself with both hands. My feet involuntarily slide toward the right side of the car. My brain flashes to scenes from NASA videos of astronauts being spun around at high rates of speed in G-force tests. While many astronauts become disoriented or sick, I am exhilarated.

On the back straightaway, I look over to see Dale Jr. still smiling broadly. Before I can turn my head forward, he shoots hard into Turn 3. He keeps his right foot pressed on the accelerator pedal while using his left foot to lightly brush the brake pedal. The brake pedal is used more to help balance or position the car for the corner rather than to dramatically slow the hurtling beast. At these speeds, physics dictate that a sudden jerk of the steering wheel or on the brakes can have dire consequences. The car seems to rotate on a center of gravity located immediately beneath my ass. So this is why they refer to a scary moment on the race track as having a high pucker factor, I think to myself. Even if I had wanted to say it out loud, the wailing engine would drown out my screaming.

In the midst of the third turn, we travel over a series of ripples in the track surface. You would not feel these bumps in a passenger car, but in a car designed for the NASCAR Winston Cup series, they produce kidney-jiggling, teeth-rattling vibrations. As we increase speed, the track, which seems so wide from the relative safety and comfort of the grandstands or pit lane, suddenly looks to be razor thin. How in the hell can he do this while battling forty-two other cars and drivers?

As the car swings onto the front straight, the outside wall approaches fast. I wonder if Dale Jr. realizes that I am on the side that will impact this concrete barrier if we slide one or two inches closer. Both sides of my brain begin a frantic argument: the emotional side screams in equal parts terror and joy, while the rational side is comforted that one of the best drivers in the world is only twenty-four inches to my left, artfully pulling at the wheel as we hurtle toward the start/finish line.

After three laps, he slows on the backstraight, and I give him a big-ass thumbs-up. Two thumbs up, in fact. We both continue to smile as we roll slowly into the pit lane. I am confident that our high-speed laps have eclipsed the Winston Cup track record that Dale Jr. himself holds, but when we arrive in the pits, he points out that our lap times were more than three seconds slower than the pace he would maintain during a race such as the Coca-Cola 600, held here every May. His one-lap record is 29.027 seconds, an average of more than 186 miles per hour. Our best lap today is 33.4 seconds, or an average speed of slightly more than 161 miles per hour.

After three laps (less than five miles) of doing nothing but holding on, adrenaline is shooting though my veins as if propelled by a high-pressure fire hose. My ears are ringing from the heavy-metal volume inside the car, and my eyes are scratchy from the fumes and grit as I climb from the car delirious with joy. I am completely worn out. I refuse to believe that Dale Jr. has the strength, the stamina, and the concentration to do this for six hundred freakin milesfour hundred laps while fighting the rest of the aggressive pack of drivers who want nothing more than to get past him. There are no timeouts in racing, no time to rest or catch your breath. The ride has further convinced me what I had already suspected: this is the ultimate extreme sport.

My position as the publicist for Dale Jr. gives me unequaled access to all the action as it happens, but I have tried to keep myself out of the stories as much as possible to keep the focus on Dale Jr. and the team.

This book, though, is not a biography of Dale Jr. His life story will have to come several years from now. It is a behind-the-scenes look at his first full season on the biggest stage in American motor sports. This book looks at one year in the life of this young star, as he grows and becomes more of an adult every day. One year in his lifestarting the season as a timid rookie and ending it as one of the most outspoken role models in the sport. One year after his first Daytona 500, he returns as a confident veteran, only to see his sparkling second-place finish, indeed his entire life, turned upside down by the tragic death of his father on the final lap of the race.