LAS VEGAS -- It would have been difficult to blame Dale Earnhardt Jr. if had he not shown up. He could have kicked back in his new house, hung out with family and friends, and had somebody else accept his seventh consecutive most popular driver trophy for him. It almost would have been understandable -- what driver would want to jet all the way across the country for one day, receive an award unrelated to performance, and face another round of questions about what it's going to take to turn his program around?

No, it wouldn't exactly have been proper, but after his miserable, snake-bitten 2009 season, it would have been easy to fathom why the guy might have wanted to steer clear of this Champion's Week altogether. And for an instant there was the question of whether he had, after his name was announced during Thursday's Myers Brothers award ceremony, and a few long seconds passed without any sign of Junior in the showroom of the Venetian hotel. But then there he was, picking his way past all those Chase drivers and their entourages and making a long walk toward the stage.

"They stuck me up there in the top row," he joked.

Well, when you're in a room full of title contenders and you finish 25th in final points, that tends to happen. This was a quick Las Vegas trip for Earnhardt, who was heading home right after the event. No craps, no poker, no regaling in the festivities surrounding teammate Jimmie Johnson's fourth consecutive title in NASCAR's premier division. But he had to make an appearance. Four years ago, after the first time he missed the Chase, he sent a videotaped message of thanks to New York. He won't make that mistake again.

"I learned my lesson," he said. "If the fans are going to go through the trouble of clicking online every day to get this award for you, to get you to win it, to hope you win it, I understand how important it is for me to accept it in person."

Make no mistake about it, Earnhardt understands and appreciates the meaning behind the most popular driver award. Only three men have won it seven or more times, and the other two are Bill Elliott and Richard Petty. In his speech in the Venetian showroom, he used words like "honor" and "pride." Junior is a driver who well understands his sport and his place in it, and realizes that a large degree of responsibility goes along with his fame -- hence, a 3,000-mile trip to Las Vegas for roughly 30 seconds on stage and 20 minutes with the media.

"There's a big sense of, did I earn this? Did I deserve it, because of my family name?" he said. "My father gave me a hell of a gift in popularity. My job has been to try and be an asset to the sport. To try and maintain that gift, and its integrity, and the name my father has built, the respect that it has, the Earnhardt name and all that. There are a lot of emotions that kind of run through when I accept the award."

“

If the fans are going to go through the trouble of clicking online every day to get this award for you, to get you to win it, to hope you win it, I understand how important it is for me to accept it in person.

”

-- DALE EARNHARDT JR.

Earnhardt's appearance was but a small part of a larger program that honored award recipients who would otherwise get lost in the pomp and circumstance of the formal Cup banquet. There was Joey Logano, accepting his rookie of the year trophy, and giving thanks to mentor Mark Martin. "I only hope I can wheel a car like him when I'm his age in 2040," the 19-year old said. There was radio broadcaster Barney Hall, receiving the Myers Brothers award for lifetime achievement. There was championship crew chief Dale Inman, receiving the Buddy Shuman award for significant contributions to NASCAR.

There were sponsor-driven awards that led to some rather curious winners, like Juan Montoya as driver of the year and Darian Grubb as crew chief of the year and Jack Roush as problem-solver of the year. "As part of the management team at Roush Fenway [Racing], I feel somewhat complicit in the problems we had to overcome," quipped Roush, who had three of his five drivers go winless on the season.

Johnson, as expected, backed up the truck, receiving a slew of honors and the check-filled envelopes that go with them. Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong sent a videotaped tribute. "You just have three more to go," the cycling legend said. "Good luck." Johnson seemed more concerned with how cold it was in the theatre, and used some of his rarely-seen championship muscle to get a stern message across.

"The temperature in here is unacceptable," he said. Johnson would have another issue later in the day, when his No. 48 show car somehow conked out during the "Victory Lap" parade down Las Vegas Boulevard, and he rode to the finish sitting on the rear wing of a pace car while a wrecker tended to his vehicle. "He finally broke down!" one fan in Earnhardt Jr. gear exclaimed. For the rest of the field, though, the failure came much too late.

For Earnhardt, the work is well under way to get him back to Las Vegas next December for reasons that have nothing to do with his popularity. Car owner Rick Hendrick has already made changes, moving the former lead engineer of Mark Martin's No. 5 car to Earnhardt's team, and tasking Alan Gustafson and Lance McGrew -- the respective crew chiefs of the 5 and 88 cars, which are housed in the same facility -- with merging those operations to the same seamless level of the 48 and 24 programs of Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

"That's my focus for next year," Hendrick said. "I'm committed to that 88 car. The other guys are running well and they know the things they've been doing. I've met with Lance and Alan and Junior, and you're going to see a big difference in that team next year."

Earnhardt certainly hopes so, especially after an awful 2009 campaign full of failures and breakdowns and shortcomings. Before, Hendrick said, Gustafson had his guys in the 5 outfit, and Tony Eury Jr., Earnhardt's former crew chief, had his guys on the 88. They were two separate teams under the same roof. "Now, we're swapping guys around," Hendrick said. "We're trying to make one big team with two cars."

That means Gustafson, who helped Martin to a second-place points finish this year, will play a role on the 88. There are other changes, too, in areas like shocks and engineering. Thursday, at least, Earnhardt sounded optimistic.

"I hope it makes us better," he said of the changes. "It should make us better. I feel good about it. I think that as an entire unit the 88 car could have been stronger. We had the resources. There was a broken link here and there. Hopefully we've got that fixed and we'll see the results on the race track."

What that link specifically was, he wouldn't say. "I don't want to bring a lot of light to them," Earnhardt said. "They're commonplace changes, but anytime we do anything with our team it really puts everybody in a spotlight, and these are individuals that work in the sport that don't care to be in the spotlight. I really don't want to do that to any of the guys I've been working with in the past that I won't work with in the future. Because they're good guys."

Earnhardt knows a little something about living in the spotlight, and truth be told handles it better than many others would in his situation. Even Hendrick will admit that Earnhardt's enormous popularity puts pressure on everyone associated with him, a nine-time championship car owner included.

"I knew that when he came, that I'd be answering more questions about what's wrong if he wasn't successful," Hendrick said. "That's just kind of part of the deal. But I have a very good relationship with him, and I really admire the guy that lives inside that wants to please a lot of people but carries a tremendous burden on his shoulders. It's not one I would want."

And yet, Junior hoists that burden onto his shoulders every time he walks out his front door. Which is why he knows better than anyone that he needs to reach a point where his production and his popularity are more in line. Which is why he came to Las Vegas for a few hours to accept an award that had nothing to do with success or failure on the race track. Which is why leaving the frustration of 2009 behind must be as easy as flipping a page on a calendar.

"It's going to have to be," he said. "It's basically the only option I've got."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.