Junior has his number, time to focus on results

DALLAS -- No sooner had one numbers issue been settled Wednesday in Dallas when another quickly arose.

Once again, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was right at the center of it.

This time, just moments before Earnhardt unveiled the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports cars he will be running for sponsors Mountain Dew, Amp Energy drink and the National Guard next season, former driving champion Darrell Waltrip was asked if the pressure finally had been lifted from Junior after months of nonstop questions.

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The kid at last had the answers to which car he would run, right down to the paint schemes he personally helped design and the number -- 88 -- that should double the pleasure for most of his fans (and not cause too much pain for those who need to amend their No. 8 tattoos).

Waltrip thought for a second about the question. It would be inaccurate to say he paused, for he rarely stops talking long enough for that description to apply. But then he laid out the new numbers that might keep folks talking.

"I don't know about pressure. These are just things that distract you," Waltrip said. "When you have distractions and you're trying to win a race or just trying to get to the racetrack every week, and people ask you the same questions over and over, you get annoyed with that. I think this will give him a chance to move on. Everybody knows what he's going to do now.

"Now the questions become: How's it going to go? And how many races to do you think he'll win? I think he'll win six races myself. I think he'll win Daytona right out of the box. He'll be great at Daytona and Talladega. He's good at Richmond; he's good at Martinsville. There are some other tracks where he'll slip up there and get a couple. So I think he'll win at least six next year."

Six race victories? Next season?

From a guy who hasn't won one since May 6, 2006 at Richmond? That was 53 races ago.

But no one was flinching from Waltrip's prognostication Wednesday -- not even, and most notably, Junior himself.

Quick learners

Earnhardt talked about how his current and long-time crew chief at DEI, Tony Eury Jr., will follow him to his new place of employment. He talked about how Eury recently rode back from a race on one of the Hendrick team planes, discussing along the way every aspect of what is going to be his new job with current Hendrick crew chiefs and key employees, including team owner Rick Hendrick.

Shortly after landing, the two Juniors -- Earnhardt and Eury -- had their own significant conversation. They talked about how they expect to excel in Hendrick equipment, and about how they noticed Casey Mears, who made the switch to Hendrick from Chip Ganassi Racing prior to last season, is really running well now after a slow start attributed to an early adjustment period that Earnhardt hopes to avoid.

When he took several laps in Kyle Busch's Hendrick car at Texas Motor Speedway earlier this year (Busch disappeared in a huff after wrecking), Earnhardt said he noticed that Busch's No. 5 machine turned differently than his own No. 8 DEI car. That, coupled with what he saw Mears go through, got Earnhardt to thinking about what he'll need to do to get fully acclimated to the Hendrick cars if he truly hopes to contend for the Daytona 500 that Waltrip already has him winning.