In the Field: Elliott Sadler

It's been a tough week if you're Dale Earnhardt Jr., but if I'm walking in his shoes, the most interesting part is just beginning.

I've known Earnhardt for a long time. He and I have been friends, probably longer than any other competitor in the garage area.

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We go back to the days racing Late Model Stock Cars in Virginia and the Carolinas together, back before we started racing Busch cars.

We consider ourselves to be good, good friends on and off the track and I know what kind of person he is and I know how much DEI means to him -- and how much it meant to him to race for them from the very start of his career.

So I'm still just blown away that he's leaving. How do you let the biggest name in our sport just walk out the door?

I don't understand that. How does it happen?

It reminds me of Babe Ruth leaving the Boston Red Sox to go to the Yankees.

I can't believe some of the quotes I read, talking about people not believing he could leave the family business. Well, I'll tell you this: He is family.

If he's that much family, which we all know he is, why wasn't he given a share of the 'family business?'

It's just hard to understand. And being a fan of Dale Earnhardt's growing up, I can't imagine that when he sat down and drew his first plans out to build DEI, that Dale Jr. was not a part of it.

I don't have any kids but I do have a father and I see him work through his blood, sweat and tears all the time to build up his companies and his businesses and he always reminds us and lets us know, that he's doing that for us -- to leave to his kids: My brother, my sister and myself.

I don't think he would ever ask us to buy half of it from him, because we're all part of the family and we've all just grown in this deal together. We're all part of it and we're going to share in the family business together.

It's kind of what you do as a family. It's tough to see it any other way than when Dale Earnhardt was laying the first brick at DEI, that he wasn't envisioning it as part of Dale Jr.'s career; and that he was building it up for him to have one day, to race and probably to own.

So it's a tough situation over there, and I know, being friends with Junior, what he thought of his dad -- as a racer and as a father -- and how much he appreciated what his dad was doing for him through his Busch career and getting him his Cup ride, to get his feet wet in Cup racing.

I know it was a tough day on Junior when he announced he was leaving. I think a lot of people forget how emotional that was for him to have to come out and do this.

It was a tough day and I can't imagine telling my father I was leaving to go and do something else, because when you're not given an opportunity to be a part of the company -- part of the family business -- and to have the ownership part with some decisions to make and focus on that, that's tough.

Junior leaving DEI

Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced he will leave Dale Earnhardt Inc. at the end of this season.

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You've got to give him a shot because the kid wants it. He's lived it and jumped through every hoop and done everything that company has ever asked him to do.

And so in return he just wanted a piece of the pie, just some controlling rights to make sure this team stays competitive and stays on top of its game and I just think that's his competitive nature.

In that respect he's just like his dad, because his dad wanted to be competitive and whatever it took to do that, to run up front, is what he wanted to do. Junior was in the same boat and this was a company he had worked for his whole life, had given 100 percent to and won races and a couple Busch championships for.

He wanted to make sure the company was staying on the right track, and when he was not given the opportunity to do that, then it's time to do something else.

I can tell you this: It has nothing to do with money, and it never has with Junior. I knew this kid before he raced in the Busch Series and he's the same guy now as he was then.

He's the most popular driver we have in NASCAR right now and he doesn't act a bit different than he did when we raced Late Models together at South Boston or Myrtle Beach.

It has nothing to do with money or having the power to just say, I can do this or do that. It has to do with being competitive and feeling like you have a chance to win when you get to the track every week.

And feeling like you can win the championship each and every year. And I feel like that's just the opportunity he wants.

He's 32 years old and probably in his prime as a racecar driver and he can't sit around and wait four or five more years hoping the company he's driving for will make things better or to give him in the future what he needs to be competitive.

It's my opinion that he wants to make this change now while he's in his prime, so he can go somewhere and be real competitive.

It's weird how it all came down. I'm happy for him and I think that he's making the decision based on having a great chance to win championships and to win races and that's why he made this decision to leave DEI and move on.

He wanted to make it happen at DEI, but he just could never get to where he needed to be. He wanted to have some say-so in where the company was going, because that's just the person he is.

I think his dad was like that. Even though his dad didn't own a part of Richard Childress Racing, I think his dad had a lot of say-so in the way things went over there -- and I think Junior wanted to have the same thing at DEI.

And that power, or that clout, was never given to him. And so he wanted to go somewhere that he not only has some say-so, but also a great chance of winning the championship and winning races.

What's the future going to bring, not only for the No. 8 team, but also in the ripple effect, if you will, throughout the garage area as DEI tries to fill that seat?

I think a lot of his guys are going to go with him. If you hang around that 8 car, on any given weekend, those guys love Junior. He treats them all like family and they're all good friends away from the racetrack.

You never know what contract stipulations any driver has, or any crewmember has, but I bet if some of the guys had that opportunity; they're probably going to go with him.

And why not? He's a great guy to be around, he's definitely focused and enthusiastic about trying to win championships and trying to win races -- and you want to work for a guy like that.

As far as getting into that car, and who might go to DEI? I don't know, and that's a tough question. DEI just let the best-known driver and the biggest face our sport has ever had just walk out the door.

So as a driver you have to ask, 'what kind of commitment do they really have?' And that's what I would ask if I was a driver looking to go over there.

I'm not saying they're not committed, but it's just a weird deal and personally -- I wouldn't want to drive the 8 car.

If I took a job tomorrow to go over there and drive at DEI -- and I'm not because I'm pretty happy here at Evernham Motorsports -- I would love for them to change the number because I would not drive the 8 car.

And that's because Dale has built so much of a brand with him and that number, I don't think it would be right for anyone else to drive it. I don't think anybody would feel comfortable driving that number, to be honest with you.

I'd ask them to change it, one way or the other, or to do something to it -- like, put a 1 to one side of it, or the other.

I don't think Teresa Earnhardt is going to let Dale have that number, wherever he ends up going -- and I don't think money is the object on that score, either.

I just think Teresa will not let him have it, and that's my opinion. I think that's a DEI number and I don't know whether she'll let him have it or not. I think she should let him have it if he wants it, but that's just my opinion.

But I don't think she will. I mean, that's a DEI number and she has some brand built with that number, for her company -- and you've got to understand that. It's probably worth a lot of money to her company, also.

But again, my opinion as a driver -- and I don't care who you put over there, and how big their name is in this sport -- they will always be overshadowed by that number 8 because that was Earnhardt Jr.'s first number in Cup racing.

They could probably go on to win a lot of races with that car, with whatever kind of sponsor, but if it's still that No. 8 with that same font and that same look to it, it's still going to be Earnhardt Jr.'s number.

I don't know that we'll see two Budweiser cars next season in Nextel Cup. That's a lot of money, because it takes a lot of money nowadays to sponsor a car and I think that would be hard for a company to sponsor both.

But you never know what those guys have got planned. That's one thing -- Anheuser-Busch has always done an amazing job on marketing in the areas they've been in, and with the commercials they make, which are always eye-catching.

And they're not sponsoring the Busch Series any more, so I'm not going to make a prediction because I'm not sure what's going on as far as that side is concerned.

But I do know they've built such a great brand around Dale Jr. and his personality and his face that it seems like that would be the right thing for them to do -- to go wherever he goes.

Bottom line, he wants to be competitive and win races, and he's going to go wherever he feels like he can do that.

For right now, I think his team will be able to compete, and they showed that at Darlington with a top-10. But a couple months down the road, if they don't have a person to go in the 8 car yet, for next year, then when do those crew guys start getting nervous and look outside of DEI?

They have to make sure they have security. I think that's the biggest issue they're going to have, if they're not competing for the championship. If they do have a driver coming in, that's great.

If they know they're going to have a two- or three-car team and they know they'll have security, they'll be fine.

But if they have a hard time filling that car, some crew guys are going to want to make sure they're in a secure position because guys have wives and kids they have to take care of.

But I think as far as the 8 car and their performance, I think they're going to be fine because they're a pretty tight-knit group -- no matter what happens with Tony Jr. and his suspension from his penalty at Darlington.

Tony Jr. is going to give it his all, no matter if he's at the track or not, and where they're going to be next season. They've grown up together and I don't think he'll turn his back on him.

They're racers, and that's what they're going to do -- keep contending for that Chase like we're all doing.

Elliott Sadler, now in his ninth full season in the Cup Series, shares weekly with NASCAR.COM readers life on the road through staff writer Dave Rodman.