Jr.: I expect to drive the 3
by: Marty Smith, NASCAR.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wants to drive the No. 3 Chevrolet for Richard Childress. Expects to, even.

It has been discussed.

"I really think that'll happen," Earnhardt said, leaned back easily in a folding chair on the JR Motorsports shop floor. "I've informally talked to Richard, just so he knew I wanted to do that."
Easy, Junior Nation, easy. ... Before you run off and make the 6.7 commercial reality -- "HE CHANGED HIS NUMBERRRR!!" -- relax. Take a deep breath. It'll be a while.

"I'll drive the No. 3 car toward the end of my career if I've done what I wanted to do at DEI, and that's win championships and win races," Earnhardt said. "And I'll stick around as long as it takes to do it."

Earnhardt's devotion to Dale Earnhardt, Inc. has never been stronger. The want to see his father's vision through to fruition has fostered a new, sharper focus.

That wasn't the case six months ago.

A tumultuous 2005 season ignited a firestorm of speculation about Earnhardt's commitment to DEI. Word was he wanted out, was seeking the quickest avenue to a new racing home.

But a reunion with Tony Eury Jr., and the renewed mutual respect a year apart forged, along with Martin Truex Jr.'s elevation to the Nextel Cup Series, has reinvigorated the entire company - and Earnhardt's belief therein.

"There's been a lot of gray areas at DEI for four or five years. We've made some mistakes, so there's a lot of questions on a lot of people's minds about the future," he said. "But some things, fortunately, have happened in the last year that are putting us in position to make it right.

"What if Tony Jr. didn't want me back? What if Martin was still a year away? It'd be another awful year. But it's clicking. It feels like the gears are all meshing again.

"We have the opportunity to have harmony throughout the entire business side, and as a company become the icon we once were."

If and when that happens, if and when DEI becomes self-sufficient and no longer requires Junior's presence for perceived legitimacy, if and when Junior hoists the Nextel Cup under the DEI banner, he'll park the 8 and head to RCR to write the final chapter of his father's legacy.

For many that is necessary. For some members of the Earnhardt family, and for many of Dale Earnhardt's lifelong friends inside racing and out, closure won't come until the 3 screams down the superstretch at Daytona.

With Junior at the wheel.

But this isn't about Junior. It's not about the fans. It's not about NASCAR marketing hoopla.

It's about the passion with which Dale Earnhardt and his boys competed. It's about racing -- hell-bent, pedal to the mat racing.

"It'd be good for guys like Will Lind, guys that spent a lot of time with my Dad in his racing career," Junior said. "If I ever drove the 3, it'd have nothing to do with my personal feelings. It'd be all racing.

"It'd be all about going out on the track with the 3, with an Earnhardt behind the wheel, putting a smile on Chocolate (Myers') face and Richard's face and those guys he spent so much time with for so many years.

"It's not necessarily for anyone. If the fans like it, they like it. If they don't agree with it, they don't agree with it. That's fine. It's between me and Richard."

He'd gladly leave the particulars to Childress.

"They could do it however they saw best," Junior said. "If they want to paint it black, they can paint it black. If they don't, I don't care. I don't feel it's my decision. It'd just like to do it because I'd like to drive for Richard. He's been so good to me.

"People tend to twist that around and think I want to [leave DEI] tomorrow. I have a commitment -- not legally as much as mentally -- to do what I can to make DEI as good as it can possibly be.

"But Richard knows I'd like to do it, and he seems pretty open to it. We'd like to do it together."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.