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.

"I saw that it took him several weeks [Mears] to really get it figured out. I really want to try to avoid as much of that as possible," Earnhardt said. "If it takes me a while to get used to these cars -- to understand them and how they work -- I want to alleviate that by testing as much as possible."

So Earnhardt relayed that information to Eury and then asked him a pointed question.

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"If that doesn't work, are you still going to have everything we've always ran in your back pocket?" he asked him.

"Of course," replied Eury. "No matter what, you've got that."

That was comforting to Earnhardt, who later added: "So I'm glad he's in the fold. I feel like we can come out of the box and be very competitive. At worst, we can be our usual selves, which isn't too shabby. And if we're smart, we can take advantage of the resources that Rick has in his company -- and we're going to run better."

What's in a number?

They're also going to run in the No. 88. How they arrived at that is a great story in itself, and one worth telling.

After choking down the disappointment of not being able to get his hands on the No. 8 from Teresa Earnhardt, who would be portrayed as the wicked stepmother if this was a Cinderella fairytale (which it is not), Earnhardt and his business manager, trusted sister Kelley Earnhardt Elledge, were left scrambling for other options.

Eventually the talk turned to the possibility of acquiring the No. 28 that was controlled by but currently not being run by Robert Yates Racing. Yates also owns the No. 88, which it is running this season.

"We got talking about the possibilities of trading out one of the other numbers," said Earnhardt Elledge, who led those negotiations on Junior's behalf. "The 88 makes perfect sense because it's double the 8. Two is better than one in some cases. We run the 88 on our Busch car in our Busch program [for JR Motorsports, which Junior owns]."

It also is the number that once graced the side of a car driven by Ralph Earnhardt, Junior's grandfather, for precisely eight races when Ralph drove for Petty Enterprises during what was then the equivalent of the Cup series back in 1957.

"Robert [Yates] is pretty easy to sit down and talk with. He's a good friend of our family. He's raced against Grandpa Ralph," Earnhardt Elledge said. "So it's easy to get in a room with him and hear a lot of stories about that, which I love. So it was real easy to work out a deal and for him to talk with [Yates' son] Doug and the rest of his family. That number obviously meant a lot to them. They won a championship with that number in their organization (with Dale Jarrett in 1999).

"And so we're thankful that they thought enough of us to work something out with us, where they can bring the No. 28 back to the racetrack and we can carry on their legacy with the 88."

To date, Earnhardt has never driven anything but the No. 8 in his Cup career, which began in 2000. Changing numbers is not something he took lightly at any point in the process, and he wanted a number with some solid history behind it.

"I really didn't understand or know much about my grandfather driving the number," Earnhardt said. "You know, he drove so many different cars that it wasn't really a big surprise to me. But I'm more knowledgeable about and probably more connected to the history of the number from 1978 to '84 [and beyond] with Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison and Rusty Wallace and Ricky Rudd driving it ... [with] Dale Jarrett's recent success with the number. Donnie Allison drove it in the 70s.

"It's had a lot of great drivers, and it's always had a lot of great respect. I feel like the number is very respected. Numbers have personalities, and numbers do talk. Numbers do kind of reach out and grab you. And some of the other options just didn't do that. They just didn't really hit me and make me feel good about them. This one kind of came out of nowhere when we started talking about the 28. I would rather be the 88."

Crazy eights

So can the 88 really win the 2008 Daytona 500 and a total of six races next season?

Waltrip wasn't backing off his prediction even when given a chance to reconsider a little later.

"I know what kind of ability Junior has," Waltrip said. "I know the equipment he's going to have. I know the people that Rick is going to put around him. There will be absolutely no reason that I can see why he won't come out and have an awfully good shot at winning Daytona right out of the box.

"I drove for Rick. I know what Rick can do for you. He gives you the best. He gives you what you need. If you don't have it and you need something, you tell him and he'll get it for you. That's all a driver can ask for.

"I know Junior's ability. I know when you put him in one of Rick Hendrick's cars, he'll win races. I think he'll win at least six next year."

Hendrick did not seem put off by Waltrip's assertion about his new driver.

"I think anytime you get him close at Daytona or any speedway, you're going to have a shot to win it," Hendrick said. "I can see five or six races he could have won this year, had he been there at the end. I think with his talent and Tony's talent, we can give them the resources to hopefully work with the rest of our guys and be competitive and be there every week.

"So it's hard to bet against him. I've seen him take a car that was a 20th-place car at a speedway race and get it to the front. I'd love to win the Daytona 500 with him."

With 17 career victories despite his much-publicized recent winless streak, Earnhardt declined to put a number on next season beyond the fact that he'll drive the 88. But he has a plan -- and Waltrip's number for next season appears to fit in with it reasonably well.

Junior is thinking big picture.

"There are no number of wins I want to surpass or anything like that," Earnhardt said. "It's just that when you retire, you want people to say that you were great."

With that in mind, why stop at six next season? Why not start a new campaign slogan -- eight for the 88 in '08?

Hey, at least it would give everybody something to talk about regarding Earnhardt just when it seemed the subject was finally all talked out.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer