Richard Childress pauses a moment, considering the question.

How differently would his life and career have turned out had Dale Earnhardt not returned to Childress' team in 1984? Together, they went on to win six NASCAR championships and riches beyond imagination.

Childress pauses, and then answers.

“

We had won some races with Ricky Rudd, won some poles, won some races. We had the opportunity to keep Ricky with Wrangler or go with Dale and we chose Dale. So who knows how it would've turned out.

”

-- RICHARD CHILDRESS

"It's one of those things you'll never know," Childress said during Charlotte Motor Speedway's annual media tour. "It's just hard to say, because Dale was a huge player.

"We had won some races with Ricky Rudd, won some poles, won some races. We had the opportunity to keep Ricky with Wrangler or go with Dale and we chose Dale. So who knows how it would've turned out."

Who knows, indeed? Just imagine a NASCAR universe in which Earnhardt did in fact drive in his prime for Junior Johnson, rather than Childress.

Think about Johnson firing Darrell Waltrip in order to hire Earnhardt, or how Bill Elliott's career in the mid-80s might have fared without sponsorship from Coors beer. It sounds crazy, like something out of a bizarre NASCAR-themed science fiction movie.

Crazy, yes. But very nearly true.

Prior to the 1984 season, Johnson had a signed contract with Wrangler Jeans to sponsor one of his two teams. Officials of the company wanted to continue its working relationship with Earnhardt, who had driven a yellow-and-blue Wrangler-backed car the previous three seasons. That meant Earnhardt was in and Waltrip was out.

That's not all. Though the deal hadn't been signed, Johnson also said that he had a verbal agreement with Coors beer to back a second car to be driven by Neil Bonnett beginning in 1984.

"At the end of [1983], Richard Childress was running Ricky Rudd and Earnhardt couldn't go back over there," Johnson said. "I had two teams then. Well, I needed two sponsors. I put Wrangler [and Earnhardt] in Darrell's team.

"I knew the Coors people out in the West. I knew them pretty good, because I talked to them a lot ... when I'd go to Riverside and stuff. I called them up and they wanted to sponsor Neil Bonnett, so I had my sponsors." (Continued)