For Dale Jr., finale less an end as it is new beginning (cont'd)

It's as if the 2008 Daytona 500 can't come soon enough. But there are the mechanics of departure to be attended to first, the end of the bitter divorce between Earnhardt Jr. and the organization his late father founded. At DEI he drove cars that weren't always reliable, and butted heads with a stepmother who also happened to be his team owner. At Hendrick, neither of those issues will exist. But he'll still have that lingering wistfulness, knowing that this separation isn't quite what his late father envisioned.

"I will be sad for my father that things aren't different," he said. "I'm sad for him. Not for me, not for anybody else. I'm just sad because his vision was different. He was such a great person, and his visions were great and worthy and should be realized, and that will be a shame. I've got some great support from Rick whenever I need it, and that's going to help a lot getting from one place to another. He knows exactly what I'm thinking and exactly what I'm going through. He knows the kind of guy I am and the things that matter to me, because he's great at reading people. He'll be great support for me as we move from one thing to another."

Then there's the matter of all those men Earnhardt has shared so many weekends with throughout the past eight years, members of a road crew who have been there through so many blown engines and trips to Victory Lane. When Eury Jr. completed his final race at DEI, at Talladega last month, he could only shake hands, say thank you, and leave. The emotions were too much. The hardest part of the process was walking into DEI on the Wednesday before his last race, knowing all those tire changers and fabricators would soon be members of another team. They sat around the break room, drinking beer and telling stories.

"Dale Jr.'s not able to do that," Eury said. "Dale Jr. comes in, gets in that racecar, performs the best he can, talks to these guys a little bit in between. But when he gets out of that racecar Sunday night, he's going to do like I did at Talladega. He's going to shake their hands, tell them thank you, and hope they get that we're not saying we're never going to be friends or we're never going to see these guys again. But it's a long relationship. When you've spent as much time together as we have, it's tough. I catch myself going down there just to talk to those guys. You just want to be around them a little bit. He'll be like that a little bit. We've got a new family here, and that's what we need to look at. We need to look at the future. But Sunday night is definitely going to be tough."

The guys on Earnhardt's No. 8 team are still calling him when they go out to the bar on Monday nights, something that makes the driver feel good about maintaining so many of the friendships he made while at DEI. But these days, there's a seriousness about Junior. He knows what he's on the brink of. He knows what the expectations are. And he's ready to turn the page and make them happen.

"If Tony Jr. says we need to work every day in January, I'll be the first one on the sounding board making it happen," Earnhardt said. "I want to be right, and I want to do whatever it takes to be right. We'll work all night."

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.