2000 All-Star race proved Junior's coming out party (cont'd)

Earnhardt also won NASCAR's all-star extravaganza three times, a feat that has been matched only by driver Jeff Gordon. And when he won, he usually did so in spectacular fashion.

When Junior won the 2000 all-star race, he did it in almost a methodical manner -- overcoming a pit stop for a loose lug nut and a later brush with the wall to continue marching toward the front. He went from 10th to third before a caution period in the final segment, during which he predicted to his pit crew that the race was his for the taking.

"This has been pretty easy so far. Give me four fresh tires and I'll go win this damn thing," he told them over the radio.

He then charged from the pits and took third from his father and second from driver Jerry Nadeau on the same lap. Three laps remained, and only defending Cup champion Dale Jarrett and his No. 88 Ford stood between Earnhardt Jr. and victory.

Junior surged ahead coming out of Turn 4 one lap later, and no one could catch him.

A star was born. When his father died less than a year later, superstardom seemed to be thrust upon Dale Jr. before he had time to think about it -- not that he appeared to have any choice. Fans of his father were in mourning, and reached out to him to soothe their souls.

But there are important differences between father and son. For one thing, Junior hasn't won a single race in over a year and only two since 2005. He has 17 victories in his Nextel Cup career -- a respectable but not spectacular total -- and said he left DEI because he wants to get with a team that can help him win races more consistently and contend for championships.

"Junior is not his father. He's his own person," Evernham said. "But he'll win probably at least that many more races and probably a championship before he's done. He's just trying to take control of his own career, and win that championship. He's not saying, hey, I want to make $10 million more. He's saying he wants to win a championship, and I think that's key right there."

Junior leaving DEI

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

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It is, Wheeler insisted, a sign of maturity that previously was missing.

"He's matured a lot, just like his father did about the age that he is now, at 32," Wheeler said. "He's had people around him that have helped him out and given him some guidance, and he's a smart kid, so he knows what he's doing.

"The fact that he's more mature has made a better race-car driver out of him. He's never been a driver like his father. He's much more like his grandfather, Ralph, was -- a thinking man's driver. He kind of plodded his way to the front, in almost predictable fashion. And Junior's like that."

His star power is enormous, and everyone knows it. Everyone, it seems, but Junior at times.

"He doesn't even know it. He doesn't even realize his star power," Wheeler said. "He just acts normal -- and it just draws more people to him. Most people who become stars don't make themselves that way. He hasn't changed a bit as far as his personality is concerned, since he was 18, 19 years old. What you see is what you get right there. He doesn't talk bad about people, he respects everybody that is respectable, and he shows a lot of respect to his fans. I think those are the greatest reasons he has become so popular."

That and the fact that he is his father's son, of course.

Earnhardt Jr. still remembers basking in the glow of not just the bright lights in Victory Lane that night in May of 2000, but in the shadow of someone who stepped out of body as a legendary driver and stood, smiling, as simply the father of the young man who had just won the most important race of his young and fledging career.

Earnhardt Jr. had won two previous Cup races earlier that year for his father's DEI team, but this was profoundly different -- and he knew it.

"With the wins we had before, he would come in and shake everybody's hand and take off," Earnhardt Jr. said. "That was the only Victory Lane where he stood in the entire time. He was there the whole half-hour or 45 minutes we were there.

"He was really enjoying not only the fact of that father-son relationship, but he also was enjoying the fact that he had built a team that was the winner of the all-star race."