Earnhardt's No. 8 becomes a museum piece

Daytona BEACH, Fla. -- Hundreds of ardent Earnhardt fans jammed the Velocitorium of Daytona USA on Monday morning outside Daytona International Speedway to honor Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his team.

Earnhardt, racing for Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, won his first Daytona 500 in his fifth attempt Sunday.

His No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet was inducted into Gatorade Victory Lane at the interactive motorsports attraction, continuing a tradition begun in 1997.

The car will sit there until Speedweeks 2005.

A subdued Earnhardt, 29, still struggled to put the impact of the victory -- which took his father 20 years to accomplish -- into words Monday morning.

But he was part stand-up comic, part philosopher and mostly a race car driver as he reviewed the events of the last 42 hours.

By Monday afternoon he'd put the lie to any comments he made about being unprepared when he accomplished one thing his father never did at Daytona, sweeping both the Busch Series and Cup events.

DEI director of motorsports Richie Gilmore said he didn't sleep much Sunday night, but Earnhardt and his crew chief, Tony Eury, said they'd had no trouble.

"I went to bed about 2 o'clock and woke up, I don't know, about 7:30 this morning," Earnhardt said. "That was enough for me. I sleep so much during the day, five minutes here, 15 minutes there, that it was no problem.

"That's a pretty good alarm clock, getting your car put into Daytona USA."

As Earnhardt had alluded in his remarks Sunday, having to drive in Monday morning's rain-delayed Busch Series Hershey's Kisses 300 -- a race in which Eury also served as his crew chief -- impacted his celebration.

"The best analogy I could give would be like a guy who goes to the gas station and gets a dollar's worth of gas," Earnhardt said. "He just wants to get where he's going -- he's not necessarily worried about where he's going next."

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Earnhardt, who said in the morning he'd tried to get someone to take his place in the No. 8 Busch Series Ritz/Oreo Chevrolet, had a pretty good idea where he was going in a 36-hour period jammed with media appearances.

Late Monday afternoon was set up with NASCAR licensed TV shows and a local and national satellite media tour.

Monday night -- which included an appearance on SPEED Channel's Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain that was taped Monday afternoon -- he was scheduled to fly to New York.

He said after all the hectic atmosphere the two days, he wasn't worried about "hitting a wall" from exhaustion.

"I wish I could use that as an excuse for me not to go, and just go home, wouldn't it?" Earnhardt said, laughing. "I'll be able to get over to the bus for a couple hours and relax, get my clothes packed and throw a couple MP3s on my player for the trip.

"I might even be able to get a beer tonight, or at least something good to eat."

Earnhardt is tentatively scheduled to appear on the "Today" show, "Live with Regis and Kelly" and CNN on Tuesday morning, as well as "Late Night with David Letterman" on Tuesday night, among other media appearances.