Dale Earnhardt Jr. won six Nextel Cup races in 2004. Credit: Autostock

Conversation: Junior

NASCAR's biggest star on turning 30 and his role in the sport

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is a pied piper of sorts, fueled by ever-increasing success on the racetrack and a marketing blitzkrieg off it.

The possibility of saturation in the media genuinely concerns him, but adoring fans demand as much Junior as Junior's willing to give.

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Some hang on his every word. Many even follow his fashion sense. (Remember all those backwards hats? And rest assured, come Speedweeks there will be no shortage of 20-somethings donning trendy, made-for-Junior Wranglers and Spy sunglasses).

He has plenty to say, and candidly did so last week when he sat down with NASCAR.COM's Marty Smith during a commercial shoot in Charlotte.

In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Earnhardt discusses a surprisingly awesome Christmas present, how 30 has changed him, what he looks for in people and whether or not the sport can survive without him.

OK, man, the whole world knows you got a plane for Christmas. What else did you get?

Well, I got the best gift I've gotten in five years. It's a pizza cooker. It's badass.

OK ... Have you made several pies to date?

Hell yeah! It's a damn good cooker. It's way better than the oven. I like to eat frozen foodses, pizzas. I like to eat frozen pizzas, and this cooker cooks them like something else.

I thought 'big deal' when I saw it, and when I took it home I thought, 'Aw, what the hell, I'll throw a pizza in there.' And after I ate that pizza I was like, 'Son of a gun, man, everybody needs one of these.' It's awesome.

So you're buddies with Arturo Gotti, and a big boxing aficionado these days. What's your best punch? Ever knocked anybody out?

No. I did hit my buddy Josh, PR guy for Martin (Truex), I hit him one time and his mouthpiece flew across the ring, which I thought was good. That's probably the best shot I've ever thrown. I've hit him in the gut a couple times.

Not to say he hasn't hit me and knocked me down several times, because he (outweighs) me by 40 pounds. We get into it pretty good. Most of the time we just have little sparring sessions that are a lot of fun.

(Professional Bull Rider) Ross Coleman hit me in the eye one time --- took a black eye to Kansas last year. That's about it.

That was your birthday extravaganza, correct?

Inside the Numbers A comparision of the drivers that either turned 30 years old last year, or will this year Driver Wins Top 10s Junior 15 78 J. Johnson 14 64 K. Harvick 4 56 E. Sadler 3 34 J. Leffler 0 1

Yes.

Your thoughts on NASCAR's leadership?

I'm pretty happy with it. I mean, to be a driver in the sport you've got to feel good. The situation could be the total opposite. We could all be pretty disappointed.

And the hard part about that would be we'd all be helpless. There's nothing we could do to help it or change it. So we've got to feel really lucky that we've got people making the right decisions and steering the sport in a productive way where we can all enjoy it and not feel helpless.

Everybody wants a piece of you these days --- what do you look for in people? It's got to be hard to trust people.

Well, I don't like people that try to control what's happening. I don't like people to try to control what I do, what my schedule is, stuff like that.

I like people that look at me as the final decision on things like that. I feel like I've earned the right to make my own decisions. I want people to tell when they think they're not the best decisions that could be made and give me other alternatives, but I hate people making decisions for me without me ever knowing.

Like I was talking about earlier with the Busch car --- that just pisses me off. So those are the types of things that make you really mad and frustrate you, but for the most part I feel pretty comfortable. Me and J.R. (Rhodes, business manager) get along pretty good.

We have some highs and lows in working around each other all the time, but for the most part I think we understand each other. Mike (Davis, publicist) just started working for us recently -- he's awesome. We get along really good.

Jade (Gurss, publicist), I used to beat on Jade a lot about our schedule and stuff. I used to be pretty rough on him, but since he's gotten Mike he's backed off a little bit and now he's in a better, more comfortable position.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is always a magnet for media attention. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive

We get along a lot better than we did. We actually got to a point where either one of us could've walked away from one another, but we're a lot better off now.

To back up a moment, you were expressing to me some frustration about the Busch car you're going to race at Daytona?

Yeah. I'm not real happy with the paint scheme on it. There's an approval process that has worked in the past, but it's not the same process used every time, I guess, because it skipped over me this time.

Define 'precedence' for me.

Precedence is when you make a decision that has pretty large impact, and when the same situation occurs again you make the same decision out of consistency -- or what they call continuity. So that's what I would say precedence is.

Sounds like you've spent some time practicing that one.

Well, they say 'continuity' out here at these photo shoots a lot, so it seemed like a good word to say. It does fall along the lines of precedence, consistency, continuity. It's all pretty much the same thing.

Very good. Obviously you're the biggest star in the sport at this point. Can the sport survive without Dale Earnhardt, Jr.?

Looking backDale Earnhardt Jr. discusses his 2004 season after the finale at Homestead Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

Absolutely. People wondered whether the sport would survive without Dad, and I would damn sure assume that's a far bigger loss than the loss of me to the sport.

I feel like I paved the way for a lot of different stuff, maybe not for everybody, but for people that are interested in the types of things I do driver-wise.

Say Mark Martin, he probably don't give a damn about being in Rolling Stone, but maybe Jamie McMurray does. Ya know? So I think I've opened some doors for people like Jamie, if that's what he's interested in. I like to feel like I could get some credit in those types of areas, and I made an impact in areas like that, and on the racetrack.

I feel pretty good about how I've been successful winning some races -- some big races. But yeah, there's guys in the sport now that would benefit greatly if I wasn't in the equation. There's guys that would step up. There's weeks now where I feel third, fourth, fifth in line. There's weeks when I feel like I'm leading the pack in a general sense. I think it goes back and forth.

ConversationMarty Smith chats with Dale Earnhardt Jr. Sign up for TrackPass now BUY YOUR NEXTEL DRIVER PHONE

Like Jimmie Johnson --- he has a good personality. He recently got married, so his appeal might be going in a different direction, toward a different type of fan. He seems to kind of be settling down a little bit.

I always thought Jimmie would be more like me, but he seems to have made a lot of huge decisions in his life that have changed how I expected him to go. Jamie McMurray -- me and him kind of remind each other of each other, I think.

He has a similar personality and a lot of the same interests away from the racetrack. So I think he could fill my role in the movie.

Has 30 changed you at all?

Well, yeah, a little bit. I get a little more bossy, I guess. The older you get, the more demanding you get. I don't take as much s--- as I used to from people.

Like when my Mom tries to tell me how to do something, I'm a little more like, 'Well, I can handle it.' So, stuff like that. Not that I complain all the time, but if I had a complaint, maybe when I was 20, it'd get blown off pretty easily. Now I don't get blown off as easily, have a little more credibility wherever I go.

• Part II of the Conversation