For Earnhardt, negotiation may prove the easiest part

Congratulations, Junior. It's beginning to look like you're going to get controlling interest in Dale Earnhardt Inc., the race team your late father founded. You played hardball, and you won. Teresa, your stepmother, really didn't have much of a choice. You're the whole show. You walk, and she's left with a once-promising but enigmatic outfit that chronically underperforms.

Which, incidentally, is what you're about to assume majority ownership of. Enjoy it, boss.

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These negotiations you've been taking part in the past five months, the ones that reportedly grew so tenuous that you and Teresa couldn't be in the same room with one another? They may very well prove to be the easiest part. From the first moment, you've had all the leverage. You've been in control. You knew that you could move to another Nextel Cup organization, and the fans, the sponsors and the marketing empire would all be right behind.

And you played it all very smartly, using the media to up the ante when you needed to -- the "I want 51 percent" proclamation the week of the Daytona 500 was a masterstroke -- yet keeping quiet as things came to a head. You're a much savvier guy than people give you credit for, Junior. You've got nice little operations going on the Busch circuit and Hooters Pro Cup tour. You're smart enough to understand your fan base, and what it expects of you.

You're going to need all of those smarts and all of that savvy to return DEI to the position it once enjoyed near the top of the Nextel Cup food chain. It's never been a Hendrick Motorsports or a Roush Racing, organizations capable of rolling out multiple cars with strong chances of winning the championship. But at its height, and even in the aftermath of your father's crash, this was a team with three cars capable of winning races. Now, there's only one.

That would be your No. 8 Chevy, and even that's no guarantee. Since the start of the 2005 season, DEI has exactly two race wins. There was the epic blunder when, in the wake of six victories and a fifth-place championship finish, management took all your equipment and personnel and gave them to Michael Waltrip in a misguided attempt to strengthen his team. And in the years since that dark day in 2001, as your team understandably tried to right itself, the rest of the sport moved on. One moment, your shop was state of the art. The next, it was outdated.

It's painfully clear that your team -- and soon it will be just that, your team -- is in need of an overhaul. It's also clear that you're not going to be able to take on the task of rebuilding DEI by yourself. Look at peers who have attempted to do the same thing, and how they've struggled. Look at Kyle Petty, Robby Gordon, Waltrip. Look at how hard it was when Bill Elliott and Ricky Rudd tried to manage race teams and compete at the same time. Your father, as was usually the case, was the exception. But being a driver and an owner is the toughest thing to do in Nextel Cup. Recent history has proven it.

No word, officially

If contract negotiations between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and DEI have resulted in a tentative agreement, Junior isn't saying.

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So you're going to have to delegate. You're going to have to put racing people in charge of competition -- something that hasn't always been the case at DEI, as evidenced by the Teresa-spawned personnel swap in 2005 -- and let them make the decisions affecting the cars on the track. You're going to have to disprove the reputation, warranted or not, that DEI doesn't pay as well as other teams on the circuit. You're going to have to upgrade facilities. You're going to have to approach this job with all the passion that your father did.

But you know all that. And you also know that by taking control of DEI, you take control of your own future. Sure, there are plenty of people out there who claim that you don't deserve your reputation, that you haven't done enough on the racetrack to be as popular as you are. But there are many, many more who wear red No. 8 shirts on Sundays, and click off the telecasts when you're not up front.

Because right now, Dale Jr., you are NASCAR's meal ticket. Its popularity waxes and wanes with your success or failure. You drive television ratings and attendance. When you're doing well, like from 2001-2004, everything is bright and sunny. When you're struggling, so is the sport. Is it any coincidence that this downtick in ratings comes after one year when you've missed the Chase, and another when you were scarcely a factor? Is it any coincidence that last weekend's race at Texas, where you led 96 laps before retiring, produced NASCAR's best television number in more than a month?

That's why ownership of DEI is so important. This is bigger than you or Teresa or just one team. This is a battle for control of an organization that's more capable than any other of driving viewers and ticket sales. You understand that. You understand that you wield a big stick in NASCAR, and things like a dip in the track surface at Texas get fixed because you complain. You understand the place you and your father occupy in this sport, and how DEI cars running up front represent much, much more than just aerodynamics and speed.

That's why you need to be running DEI. Because you get it, and you're willing to surround yourself with people who get it. People who understand what DEI means to NASCAR, who realize that winning on the Nextel Cup tour is less part of a business plan and more a sacred trust. So hash out the details. Sign the papers. And get to work.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.