Earnhardt can't steer clear of fame

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- He is NASCAR's most recognizable figure, its most visible pitchman as driver of the red No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet. And, depending on whom you talk to, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is either burdened or blessed to carry on his father's legacy.

But Junior would like to clue you in on something: He really has been NASCAR's reluctant rock star, struggling to come to terms with fame and all its trappings.

"When we go do stuff like the Jay-Z [video], I'm sitting there in awe like, 'How in the hell did I get here?' and 'Why am I here?' " Earnhardt said. "People around me all the time have to remind me of the magnitude of me. They're like, 'They want you to come to the ESPYs to present,' and I'm freaked out and scared to death to go do it, or to go be on Jay Leno."

You'd be surprised to learn that the most frightening thing Earnhardt, who will start fifth in today's Daytona 500, has done wasn't behind the wheel of a racecar.

"It was when I had to get up on stage and introduce a band, Linkin Park, at the MTV Music Awards," he said.

Earnhardt's shyness and humility have frustrated his older sister, Kelley Earnhardt-Elledge, who is business manager of his Busch Series team, JR Motorsports, and the point person in his contract negotiations with Dale Earnhardt Inc.

"She's always telling me, 'You've got to get more confidence because you're that dude -- you deserve to be on that stage.' And I don't see it that way," said Earnhardt. "So when the media, when you guys write about the position and the leverage that I have, it sort of helps me understand what my sister and all these people have been trying to explain to me these five or six years."

Specifically, that the 32-year-old driver is The Man when it comes to DEI, the company founded by his father.

"I didn't ever think that I'd be good enough to race full-time," said Earnhardt. "I didn't ever think that I'd be able to hold down a job as a driver or win at the Cup level. I never thought I was going to make it."

Which might explain why he wrestles with the notion that he wields clout, not just within DEI, but in the sport at large.

"I don't think that it's a surprise that Junior didn't understand his position in our sport," said Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Chevrolet fielded by owner Richard Childress.

It seems the same has held true at the negotiating table. Until, that is, Earnhardt sparked a power play for a stake in the company. With his contract at DEI set to expire after this year, Earnhardt was asked what he wanted out of a new deal. "Majority ownership," he replied.

Well before he arrived at that demand, the negotiations seemed to take a contentious turn when Earnhardt was caught off-guard by comments made by his stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt, CEO of Dale Earnhardt Inc., in December to the Wall Street Journal, in which she questioned his commitment to the team.

"He's got to decide whether he wants to be a NASCAR driver or whether he wants to be a public personality," she told the Journal.

During testing here last month, he described the relationship with his stepmother thusly: "It ain't a bed of roses."

"She portrayed it as if I was out there waving a flag [saying], 'Hey, look at me, I can dance, I can sing and check me out," Earnhardt said. "Like I'm trying to do all this different stuff.

"I enjoy my radio show, it's an hour long and takes no time to do. My TV show ['Back in the Day' on Speed] takes five days out of the year to shoot. These things are easy. So that was a little like a low blow there."

Support came pouring in from drivers Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Harvick, who ripped Teresa Earnhardt as "a deadbeat owner" for rarely making appearances at the track.

"Obviously, my situation wasn't the magnitude of his, but we went through a similar situation last year," Harvick said. "He is probably the only one who has the bargaining power. He's got it all. I think it is deservedly right that he does have it on his side. He is the most popular driver, he has been successful. He deserves the respect of being treated as a grown man and not like he is 15 and somebody's stepson."

Asked what DEI would be without Dale Earnhardt Jr., Stewart replied, "A museum." And he wasn't joking.

"Well, I don't believe it to be true," Earnhardt said. "I think DEI provides me with a lot to be successful. They're a huge credit to everything I've ever done -- every race I've ever won, every finish I've ever had. The people that I've had to work with, the caliber engines that I've had in the past, the bodies -- they're a credit to all that.

"My dad started that team and the success that I've had is very credible and very impressive. So there's really no one thing more important than the other when it comes to one side or the other."

Former Sony record executive Max Siegel, hired last year as DEI's president of global operations, may emerge as the best hope for negotiating a contract and a truce between Earnhardt and his stepmother.

"I think that he brings a lot of integrity and credibility to wherever he's at," Earnhardt said. "I'm excited he's at DEI. He's a great guy to talk to and a great guy to work with and he's going to speed things up. A lot of the problems in the past was that it was very 'clunky' in the way it went along."

If Earnhardt becomes a free agent at the end of the season, he has a standing offer to drive for Childress, who won six championships with Earnhardt's father.

"I've let that be known, but I think everybody would like to see it work out for him at DEI," Childress said. "If it doesn't, then I hope he comes to talk to us first."

To drive his late father's famed No. 3? "I don't think he wants to drive the 3," Childress said. "He's established his own identity as the 8 and we don't plan on anyone ever really running that 3 again. If we run the 3, it would be a totally different 3."

Earnhardt knows the best way to leverage his position is to win his first NASCAR Nextel Cup championship.

"For Dale, it's a totally different scenario," said Gordon, a four-time Nextel Cup champion. "You've got huge pressure from his father's fans and his own fans and from the media. His name, by itself, creates a huge amount of pressure. For him, winning the championship, I think, would be more of a relief than anything else to just get everyone off his back."

While a championship would "help validate my career," Earnhardt said he wouldn't "carry any burden with me if I don't."

"I've already accomplished more than I ever thought I would," said Earnhardt, winner of the 2004 Daytona 500 and back-to-back Busch Series championships in 1998 and '99. "I've shook hands and met people and done things I'd never thought I'd see or do. I have quite a lot of fond memories of my career up to this point already and I don't even think I'm halfway [done] yet.

"I got a lot of years left to focus on winning the championship, and hopefully that does happen."

Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com.