One decision that forever altered history of the sport (cont'd)

The implications, really, are quite staggering. Some key questions: Would Earnhardt have won seven Cup championships, tying him with Richard Petty for most in NASCAR history? Would an Earnhardt-Johnson teaming have worked? How well would Earnhardt's irresistible force played alongside Johnson's immovable object? It would have been an interesting relationship, to say the least.

Where would Waltrip have landed? Would he have won a third championship, after capturing his first two with Johnson in 1981 and 1982?

“

Darrell did me a great job, and I ain't saying that Earnhardt would've done a better job. I couldn't ask for a better job than Darrell did for me.

”

-- JUNIOR JOHNSON

What might have happened had Bill Elliott's Harry Melling-owned team not landed backing from Coors beginning in 1984? He had won the first race of his career in the 1983 season finale at Riverside, but without Coors, how much longer could the Melling operation have survived?

Would Elliott have won the Winston Million in 1985 or the championship three years later? Would he have become "Awesome Bill from Dawsonville," one of the most popular drivers the sport has ever known?

The chain of events was set into motion when car owner Rod Osterlund unexpectedly sold Earnhardt's team to maverick J.D. Stacy. Unhappy with the situation, Earnhardt almost immediately began to look elsewhere. Johnson helped broker a deal to place Earnhardt with Childress, who was at the time a struggling independent driver getting by on the thinnest of shoestring budgets.

So small was Childress' outfit, Earnhardt left at the end of the season. He wanted to drive for Johnson, but Waltrip was fresh off winning his first Cup title and had been signed for two more seasons.

Again, Johnson helped guide Earnhardt's career path.

"[Earnhardt would do] just about anything I told him," Johnson said.

"I asked him, 'What about going with Bud Moore? Let me see if I can get a break in my operation to where I can hire you, and I will. Well ... he went down there for two years. I knew I couldn't do anything for two years, because my contract [with Waltrip] was that long."

Earnhardt did drive a Bud Moore-owned Ford -- Ford?!? Yes, Ford -- in 1982 and 1983, with three wins to his credit. Again, however, Earnhardt planned to change teams at the end of the '83 season. That's when Johnson kicked into gear, trying to bring Earnhardt on board.

The agreement with Wrangler signed and with Coors nearly so, Johnson got a call from Coors' major rival, Budweiser. The St. Louis brewery offered big money, more money than Johnson could possibly turn down.

"Budweiser calls me up and says, 'I'll give you twice as much money as you've got now to sponsor both cars,'" Johnson said. "I said, 'Lord, have mercy ... I've gotta take that. So I went to Richard Childress and said, 'If you'll go back and get Earnhardt, I've got a signed contract here you can have. You don't have to go no further. You've got a driver and a contract and money to race with.'

"I called the guy that worked for Bill Elliott. He was hunting for a sponsor, and I told him what was going on with Coors. I did not have the contract signed with them. We [verbally] cut a deal, and I called them and told them I couldn't take the deal and told them about Bill Elliott. That's how Bill Elliott got them."

Waltrip wound up staying with Johnson, winning a third championship in '85 before leaving to join Hendrick Motorsports two years later.

Ironically, it was Elliott's Coors-sponsored Ford that dominated most of the 1985 season, winning 11 races and a $1 million bonus for capturing that season's Daytona 500, Winston 500 at Talladega and Darlington's Southern 500.

Elliott drove for Johnson from 1992 to 1994.

"Darrell did me a great job, and I ain't saying that Earnhardt would've done a better job," Johnson said. "I couldn't ask for a better job than Darrell did for me. ... Earnhardt would've been a more explosive-type [driver]. Everybody says, 'You would've won a whole lot more races with Earnhardt than you would Darrell.'

"But you've got to figure in that Earnhardt was harder on a car. ... Darrell took care of the car. He went when he had to, and he could get the job done. I wouldn't say he could out-drive Earnhardt, but I'll guarantee he could hang with him. When [Waltrip] went after it, he'd go get it."

And the rest really is history.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.