He didn't have any posters on his walls, didn't grow up trying to emulate one driver or another. Why should he? Dale Earnhardt Jr. was confronted with old-school NASCAR racing every time he looked in the mirror.

"I'm Dale Earnhardt's son," he said, and the obvious speaks volumes. Sure, there were drivers he enjoyed watching, drivers he thought were cool. Most of them -- like Cale Yarborough, Bobby Allison, David Pearson and Richard Petty -- come from the 70s, a formative time for a driver now 35, a period when the figures seemed larger than life, the cars seemed like family sedans, and the sport seemed to burst through the television screen in vivid Technicolor.

“

Every week if we didn't run in the top three, it was a failure -- just like it is up here.

”

-- DALE EARNHARDT JR.

No question, Earnhardt has a firm appreciation for NASCAR's history, as evidenced by his love for retro paint schemes and the fact that he once hosted a TV program called Back in the Day. But heroes? Idols? That might be a bit much to ask from someone who grew up as the son of the Intimidator, the seven-time series champion who was the hero and the idol to so many. Naturally, so much of who Earnhardt Jr. is comes from that one man, from his deep-set eyes and his scowl, to the very grass-roots racing path that took him from dusty old late model tracks to NASCAR's highest level.

You want old school? Nothing says it more than a weekend night at Myrtle Beach Speedway, a tough old half-mile short track that's close enough to the coast to get all the humidity, but too far away to catch the breeze. It's one of those places that breeds veteran drivers whose blood runs with the consistency of high-grade motor oil, wily late model veterans who chose that level of racing as their calling and know every nook of the track as well as they know their children. And for three years in the mid-1990s, it became Earnhardt Jr.'s home base.

It was hard-knocks training at its absolute essence. "He basically didn't have enough financing when he came down here," said Bill Hennecy, general manager of the track. "I think his dad was putting him through the school of hard knocks. He came down here basically on a budget."

His father wanted him to learn the value of a dollar, that every used tire, crumbled piece of sheet metal, or expended gallon of racing fuel came with a price. This isn't long after Earnhardt Jr. had worked at his dad's dealership, changing oil for a couple of hundred bucks a week. He'd stop at familiar racing hangouts in the area, and proprietors would feed him hamburger steak or give him a tank of gas. On race days he'd park his trailer next to another driver who was sponsored by KFC, and feast on fried chicken.

He drove under the eye of Gary Hargett, a mechanic and late model car owner tasked by the elder Earnhardt to oversee the effort. Myrtle Beach became the center of a short-track universe that prepared Earnhardt Jr. for his debut on the then-Busch circuit in 1996. "We went to the Beach, went to I-95 [Speedway in Florence, S.C.], went to Nashville," Earnhardt remembered. "We went everywhere."

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Then as now, there were questions about why he didn't win more, or whether he could live up to his last name. Although he placed high in points and was popular with the fans, Earnhardt won only twice during his stint in Myrtle Beach, and claimed another victory at the short track over in Florence. What he's dealing with today on the Sprint Cup level is nothing new. The name, and the expectations, followed him to every level.

"When you're doing that kind of stuff, you don't realize how good you've got it and how lucky you are," Earnhardt said. "There was a lot of pressure and a lot of worry, just like there is today. You don't understand what opportunity you have at that age. I did poorly in trying to enjoy it. Every week if we didn't run in the top three, it was a failure -- just like it is up here."

Yes, there were older drivers he admired, yes there were some who became friends. Dale Jarrett, in particular, became something of a mentor to Earnhardt after his father was killed in 2001, even stopping by a 2 a.m. infield celebration after Dale Jr. won the July race at Daytona that same year. But no, there were no idols growing up. They weren't necessary. Old-school racing has been a part of Dale Earnhardt Jr. from the very beginning, as natural as his reddish beard or the twang in his voice. He didn't have to seek it out. It found him.

"I woke up one day living in it," he said. "Everything about your life was affected by it. It's just what you grew up in. You didn't choose it."