On Wednesday, June 13, at 12:05 p.m. ET, he stood up from his seat on the stage at JR Motorsports and audibly exhaled. Moments earlier he had revealed to the world that he would be driving for Hendrick Motorsports in 2008. Just 34 days earlier he had stood on this same stage to announce his departure from Dale Earnhardt Inc. During that grueling month of free agency, fan outrage and media frenzy, smiling was a luxury that he hadn’t been able to enjoy.
From the moment he’d stunned the sport with his decision to leave the team that bore his very name, the one his father had basically built for him, he’d also taken great pains to keep his emotions, thought processes, and job search away from prying eyes and inquisitive reporters. He politely turned down hundreds of television interview requests, asking for time to sort it all out.
The only people allowed to join him behind closed doors were his family, his closest advisers and one lone television camera crew. Now, as he emerged from behind the curtain and backstage, that same crew that was waiting to capture that first smile emerged with him.
“Oohhhh … man, I’m so glad that’s over,” he said as he leaned forward to land in his mother’s waiting arms.
“You did so good.”
“Thanks.”
A genuine, guard-down moment shared between Earnhardt, his mom, and a cameraman — a cameraman commissioned by Earnhardt to be there. A moment captured and soon to be revealed as part of the documentary series “Shifting Gears,” premiering Friday on ESPN2.
A shotgun seat
The idea first hit Earnhardt as he began to contemplate bolting DEI. Why not have a camera tailing him throughout the entire experience? He figured that if the footage never saw the light of day, at least he’d have it all on tape. But the goal all along was to find a place to air it out, to give the public a chance to see what all the fuss was really about. If fans or the media had questions about the reasons behind the move or doubted the difficulty of it all, they could see it for themselves.
The result of his foresight was an entire room of videotapes, hundreds of hours of footage that began piling up on May 10, 2007, the day of his initial announcement that he would be leaving. Since then, those tapes have captured moments as poignant as that backstage hug as well as the business end of the move, from securing sponsors to selecting the No. 88 to finalizing the design of the paint scheme (which, believe it or not, was conceptualized by one of Dale Jr.’s online gambling buddies).
What resides on those tapes will be uncovered during the five-part documentary series. Episode 1 premieres Friday at 7 p.m. ET, beginning with the decision to leave DEI and ending with the close of the 2007 season. Episode 2, centered on the relationships with his family and the other drivers at Hendrick Motorsports, airs one week later. Episode 3 airs on Feb. 16 and follows Earnhardt through testing, Speedweeks and right on through to the eve of the Daytona 500. From there, the cameras will keep rolling, working toward the final two episodes that will air prior to the Allstate 400 at The Brickyard in July.
“It was very important to me that people get to see what all has happened during all of this,” Earnhardt says. “Let them see what really happened. You know people hear all kinds of stuff about this happened here and he did this because of so-and-so ... but this show really shows it how it happened. And it kind of gives people a chance to see how much goes into a career change like this.”
Like the moment he and Rick Hendrick met with the crew at JR Motorsports to assure them that their Nationwide Series team was still intact and that their jobs were safe. Or the time he took his paint design to Hendrick for approval (the boss liked it, but wanted to combine one hood design with another body scheme). Or the meeting when his sister/manager Kelley Earnhardt-Elledge managed to get the suits at Pepsico (parent company of Amp and Mountain Dew) into the same boardroom with the uniforms of the National Guard to get a co-sponsorship deal finalized.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/daytona2008/columns/story?columnist=mcgee_ryan&id=3233883
Some speeds from Calif...
The Charlotte Observer
Fastest speeds for each driver during two days of Sprint Cup testing at California Speedway, with position, car number, driver, car make and speed:
1. (11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 182.523.
2. (12) Ryan Newman, Dodge, 181.511.
3. (18) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 181.470.
4. (8) Mark Martin, Chevrolet, 181.456.
5. (99) Carl Edwards, Ford, 181.228.
6. (17) Matt Kenseth, Ford, 181.036.
7. (55) Michael Waltrip, Toyota, 180.918.
8. (41) Reed Sorenson, Dodge, 180.764.
9. (24) Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 180.578.
10. (07) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 180.537.
11. (70) Jeremy Mayfield, Chevrolet, 180.487.
12. (26) Jamie McMurray, Ford, 180.388.
13. (29) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 180.180.
14. (20) Tony Stewart, Toyota, 180.167.
15. (00) David Reutimann, Toyota, 179.703.
16. (16) Greg Biffle, Ford, 179.672.
17. (31) Jeff Burton, Chevrolet, 179.542.
18. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 179.497.
19. (6) David Ragan, Ford, 179.453.
20. (1) Martin Truex Jr., Chevrolet, 179.453.
21. (22) Dave Blaney, Toyota, 179.430.
22. (44) Dale Jarrett, Toyota, 179.399.
23. (88) Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, 179.350.
24. (2) Kurt Busch, Dodge, 179.341
25. (15) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 179.265.
26. (84) AJ Allmendinger, Toyota, 179.167.
27. (9) Kasey Kahne, Dodge, 179.162.
28. (27) Jacques Villeneuve, Toyota, 179.051.
29. (5) Casey Mears, Chevrolet, 179.029.
30. (38) David Gilliland, Ford, 179.002.
31. (66) Scott Riggs, Chevrolet, 178.851.
32. (28) Travis Kvapil, Ford, 178.687.
33. (83) Brian Vickers, Toyota, 178.629.
34. (01) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 178.580.
35. (78) Joe Nemechek, Chevrolet, 178.523.
36. (7) Robby Gordon, Ford, 178.280.
37. (10) Patrick Carpentier, Dodge, 178.213.
38. (19) Elliott Sadler, Dodge, 177.936.
39. (65) Chad McCumbee, Chevrolet, 177.791.
40. (21) Bill Elliott, Ford, 177.892.
41. (77) Sam Hornish Jr., Dodge, 177.870.
42. (42) Juan Pablo Montoya, Dodge, 177.866.
43. (43) Bobby Labonte, Dodge, 177.550.
44. (34) John Andretti, Chevrolet, 177.423.
45. (96) J.J. Yeley, Toyota, 177.187.
46. (49) Ken Schrader, Dodge, 176.987.
47. (40) Dario Franchitti, Dodge, 176.935.
48. (45) Kyle Petty, Dodge, 175.966.