Conversation: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- The 33rd and final Winston Cup Series season concluded 48 hours ago, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is busy. Really busy. Monday was chock full of meetings.

Eight hours worth.

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And Monday, Nov. 17, is considered an off day.

Tuesday was no different. The morning is reserved for a Nextel photo shoot, then it was off to a Kraft/Nabisco commercial taping before Wrangler Jeans' marketing folks show up for a commercial/photo shoot of their own. All that, and an in-depth interview with MTV lay in wait.

During a brief 10-minute break between Kraft and Wrangler (well, if you consider signing 300 autographs in 10 minutes rest -- Earnhardt sat down with NASCAR.com's Marty Smith to discuss intentions of winning the first Nextel Cup, his choices for NASCAR's best drivers and the revealing nature of his female fans.

The offseason is only two days old and you're already out here shooting mac & cheese commercials for us. You ever going to get a break, man?

Earnhardt: Uh, yeah. We get some time off. I had all day off yesterday. But I ended up in meetings that lasted six to eight hours. It's not too bad, though. At least I'm in town and get to sleep in my own bed at night.

AUDIO CLIPS Listen to the Conversation! 6:46 Listen

You ended up third overall this year, and as recently as last month you had higher aspirations than that. Are you content with the way the season ended or are you a little bit disappointed?

Earnhardt: I'm not disappointed. I feel like we had a lot of highlights.

Everybody knows that the valleys will be deeper than the peaks in this sport, and looking back over the year -- we'd like to have finished better that last race and had something to be happy about, but looking back over all the top-fives, the good runs at the road courses, the good runs at Martinsville, the good runs we've had at Darlington, those places where we really needed to improve.

We even kind of improved at Rockingham that last race. We've got a lot to look forward to going into next season and, you know, I'm just looking forward to Daytona because of how good a car we had down there in February last year and didn't win the race. That waiting time's almost over.

You have every intention of winning the championship next year, and pretty much expect to, don't you?

	Credit: Autostock

Earnhardt: I feel like we are definitely the team to beat, or one of the top-three teams again. It'll be tough for somebody to repeat they type of things that Matt (Kenseth) did last year, even for Matt.

They just had an awful lot of good fortune and it's very unlikely a team can be that consistent. If that's the case, then I think we can even do that if we have to.

But there were a lot of things that you look back at over the season -- part failures and stuff like that -- that caused us some bad finishes. I feel like we're the best team.

Do you feel like expectation of you might be higher than other drivers, because of the exposure you get?

Earnhardt: Yeah, I guess so. We got a lot going on, and I feel like, just with my name alone there's a lot of expectations coming in. I don't think anything else could make more (expectations) than that already (does). I feel like we can live up to it.

Now that it's all said and done, do you feel like your contract negotiations were any more of a distractions than you might have thought at the time?

Young gun, old hat  It's an overcast afternoon in suburban Charlotte, N.C., at the Chance 2 Busch team shop on the Dale Earnhardt Inc. compound.  And the polished actor? None other than Dale Earnhardt Jr.  It's been no more than 48 hours since the curtain came down on the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup season, and Junior's third-place finish in the point standings, but he is still hard at work. Duty still calls.  Full Story

Earnhardt: They weren't really too bad of a distraction this year, as much as they have been in the past. I knew what was going on, but a lot of other people didn't, so that might have bothered a lot of other people. It might have distracted the crew and what not.

Excluding yourself, who's the best driver out there, and why?

Earnhardt: Uhhh, well, you've got to say Matt Kenseth, being the champion this year. He's just real consistent, real competitive, doesn't make many mistakes on the racetrack, can do a good job driving the car.

Him, and I've always admired Bobby Labonte and Dale Jarrett. I think those are two good racecar drivers that take of equipment and finish good with their car, when their car's capable of running good.

Nextel's entrance into the sport is obviously going to change the sport marketing-wise, are there any other ways you see the sport might change immediately with them coming in.

Earnhardt: No, not really. I've been thinking about that, too, and nothing really comes to mind. Nothing really seems to spring up. There's some things that are going to change, but I don't know if anybody can really predict it.

	Martin Truex Jr.

You started Chance 2 as a place where guys could come in and learn, and develop, guys that are green in the sport. But you guys are out there running up front already. Are you surprised at how well this team is doing this early?

Earnhardt: Well, we've got a lot of good resources here at Dale Earnhardt, Inc., to provide to that team. They build good racecars and do a great job with Martin (Truex Jr.), and hopefully they'll kick-start the year off real good and be able to sell the company on running the full season if they're doing well in the championship hunt.

Because a lot of the first races they'll run are going to be conjunction races, so they'll have a good idea about what their season looks like at that point, and we'll be able to make a decision whether we should just run those 24 we decided on, or if we need to run more.

You guys ran a new tire compound at Homestead, softer tire and what not. How did that go for you, and do you feel like it will change the fuel mileage situation we saw so often this year?

Earnhardt: My tires kept falling apart of me. I mean, we kept blistering left fronts and right fronts all weekend long in practice, and in the race we had an awful time trying to keep the tires on the car.

	Earnhardt's win at Phoenix this month was his first on a downforce track in over two years. Credit: Autostock

I don't really know, I'm not a technician, nor do I claim to know everything there is to know about a racing tire, but I just think they could have done a better job on the tire this weekend. A brand-new racetrack with new asphalt -- we're going to have a lot of grip.

It's hot down there. That's not the place to go testing a new tire. So that was kind of disappointing, but a lot of guys were able to get their cars where they'd work, so if we could have had a better racecar, maybe we wouldn't have had those problems, too.

I'd venture to say that fans do some interesting things when in your presence, so I'd like to know where the lady revealing herself to you at Phoenix ranks on that list?

Earnhardt: I think it ranks kind of middle of the pack for me, but for most of the media it was on the top of their list. It was pretty funny. I thought it was great for the media to get an idea of some of the crazy stuff that happens around us.