We don’t have much of a NASCAR background. The closest we usually come to the drive fast, turn — hang on here — left crowd is to mock a friend’s participation in a fantasy NASCAR league. But we do have to say this business of Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving the family business for the monolith consortium of Hendrick Motorsports is interesting on a few levels (and should be confirmed this morning, perhaps even by the time you are reading this). As more of a fan of traditional “ball” sports, we’re having a hard time getting a handle on how a driver can race for one team but announce in midseason that he will be heading to another team the following year. In soccer, we suppose, the David Beckham-to-MLS news was somewhat comparable. But still: Torii Hunter announcing today he’s signing with Team X in 2008 would constitute something that amounts to tampering, wouldn’t it? How can you still perform for your current team under those conditions? What it boils down to is NASCAR can talk about “teams” all it wants. The nuts, bolts and engines behind those teams might make a difference, but at the end of the day it’s fairly ridiculous for a fan to associate him or herself with anything but a driver. This midseason shift is evidence of that. Mix in the fascinating back story of the family split, and this Earnhardt business is enough to make even a casual observer take note. For the die-hard, though, we will throw a few bones out. There are some pretty good takes on the situation here … and here … and maybe even here. There will be plenty more in the next 24 hours, to be sure.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 at 10:04 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.