Earnhardt's future begins with glance back at past (cont'd)

"I think it's really going to be the icebreaker for the way things work at Hendrick," said reigning champion Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt's future Hendrick teammate. "We've been fortunate enough to have Tony Jr. in here working to understand the system. Time is everything, and the offseason is so short, every chance we can have to get Junior into a car around our engineers, around our managers, around the other drivers, it's only going to help. So I'm happy to hear he's going to be able to drive a Hendrick car at Atlanta."

Earnhardt won't be the only driver sporting new colors Monday for the first time. The COT test will be a veritable preview of the 2008 season, with Busch behind the wheel of the No. 18 car of Joe Gibbs Racing and J.J. Yeley piloting the No. 96 car of Hall of Fame Racing. But make no mistake about it, Earnhardt is the reason grandstands and concession stands at Atlanta will be open an extra day. The spotlight hasn't shone very brightly on NASCAR's most popular driver since his quest to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup literally went up in smoke, the victim of one failed engine after another. That all changes Monday, when Junior again becomes the main event. It will be just a small taste of what's to come next year. Thought driver No. 8 was a big deal? Wait until driver No. 88 saddles up, with all that Hendrick promise behind him.

Earnhardt is entering something of a new realm. He's existed to this point as a combination of driver and pop icon, a mixture that leads some old timers to grumble that the kid hasn't done enough to deserve the attention he receives. The 58-race winless streak and the battle for control he's waged with stepmother Teresa have overshadowed everything else. Amid all the failures and frustrations of this season, it's easy to forget that he's won 17 Cup races and three times finished inside the top five in final points. It's easy to overlook that in seasons where he hasn't waged a cold war against his car owner, or hasn't had his crew whisked out from underneath him, or hasn't seen engines explode as regularly as popcorn kernels, Earnhardt Jr. has proven that he can compete and prevail against the best.

But now he'll have to prove it all over again, to a restless and sometimes doubtful fan base full of people wondering if he's subsisting less on his ability and more on his last name. It's unfair, but it's reality. DEI and all the hurdles it presented offered him one excuse after another, whether he needed them or not. Now, there are none. Now Earnhardt has to do more than make funny commercials and move merchandise. Now he has to win, to live up to a standard of excellence set by teammates Johnson and Jeff Gordon, who will have six titles between them by the end of this year.

No more Teresa. No more Pete Rondeau. No more suspect engine department. Now the weight of expectation settles fully on a driver who recognizes that fact more than anyone else. In fact, he seems to welcome it. In a strange way all these high expectations have freed him to focus solely on performance, something that was often lost amid all the distracting tangential issues that always seemed to crop up at DEI. For Dale Earnhardt Jr., next year is all about winning. And next year begins Monday.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer