Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
By BRANT JAMES, Times Staff WriterIf he fails with RCR, Kerry Earnhardt might not have another chance to race in Nextel Cup.
TALLADEGA, Ala. - Because he looks, walks and sounds like his father, Kerry Earnhardt is supposed to be and want the same things as his father, the late Dale Earnhardt Sr.
At 34, Kerry Earnhardt should be an established Nextel Cup driver with a powerful team and a growing legacy like younger half-brother Dale Jr. But the eldest of the Earnhardt children has raced around the periphery of a big-time stock car racing career the past several years, seeking an opening to become what his father wanted.
Kerry Earnhardt wants it, too, but not at the price of everything that has filled his life to this point. As hard as it is for those who knew or revered "The Intimidator" to believe, his son could just as easily walk away from the sport forever if his best, maybe last, NASCAR opportunity does not work out.
That chance begins today, when Kerry Earnhardt attempts to qualify for the Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway in the No.33 Chevrolet of Richard Childress Racing. He is scheduled to run at least five - as many as seven - Nextel Cup races this season. Because Earnhardt's car has no owner points and therefore no provisionals, he has to qualify to get into the field. And if he doesn't, if this is the latest in a string of failed bids to launch his career?
"It ain't the end of the world," Earnhardt said. "I have four kids, a wife and a life just like everyone else. If this doesn't work out, we'll figure out what avenue to take and we'll take it."
The chance to race in quality equipment for the team with which his father won six championships finally should provide the answer to whether Earnhardt can compete with the elite. His performance to date suggests otherwise.
Though he won four races in 11 starts in the ARCA series, he was winless in 65 Busch starts, most recently for a team co-owned by Pro Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw. The team released him last summer. Earnhardt crashed five laps into his only Winston Cup start, finishing last at Michigan in 2002. He failed to qualify for a Cup race that year at Talladega.
"If I didn't get this chance, I'd probably be digging ditches. I don't know," Earnhardt said. "Maybe I could work in racing in-house or something. I just want to try to make the most of this."
Earnhardt seems at peace with being less successful in the family business. Or maybe his true feelings are lost in a slow Carolina drawl and a demeanor that gives away little emotion.
"I'm aware of it being a big deal," he said of this chance. "I'm the one when things are finally done, if the outcome is great, I'll celebrate and enjoy it. I know how far things can crash. I've been there before, like the rug pulled out from under your feet. It can happen any second.
"My emotions are very different. I get real excited, I guess, but I don't show emotions, and people have a tough time reading me."
Earnhardt lore hangs as heavy over Talladega as the campfire smoke that shrouds the surrounding valley. Earnhardt Sr. won a record 10 times at Talladega, six more than anyone else, and Dale Jr. won a record four in a row from 2001-03.
Kerry Earnhardt's car bears an extra 3, and the camouflage motif of its outdoor store sponsor obscures some of the black paint his father's car bore. But it will stir sentimentality.
"When the black Chevy with the white 3 did the (Winston victory lap ceremony) at Charlotte last year, it was pretty emotional," said Bobby Hutchens, RCR's director of competition and a former crew member of Earnhardt Sr. "I guess it's one of those things where I'll have to see how I react."
Just being around Kerry Earnhardt has conjured many memories, Hutchens said. The similarities are eerie.
"It's how they cock their head, it's how they look at you through their eyes," Hutchens said. "Some of the mannerisms are very, very similar. Those were things you kind of took for granted when Dale was around. It kind of struck me - awe-struck me maybe a little bit - to begin with."
Richard Childress makes a great deal of money off the legacy of Earnhardt Sr. His copyright on the stylized 3 yields millions. The Earnhardt museum sits across the street from his race shop in Welcome, N.C.
An Earnhardt has not driven a Childress Chevrolet since Junior won the 2002 Busch race at Daytona in the No.3. Getting an Earnhardt back into one of his cars is not about marketing, Childress said, but about fulfilling the wish of a friend who died in one of his cars on Feb.18, 2001, on the last lap of the Daytona 500.
Earnhardt Sr. already had set up Dale Earnhardt Inc. and had landed a major sponsorship with Budweiser for Dale Jr. Childress said he and Earnhardt Sr. had planned to run a few races with Kerry in 2001 with RCR engines, but all those plans were shelved after Earnhardt Sr.'s death.
Kerry Earnhardt got a few chances to run some cars for DEI, which is run by his stepmother, Teresa, but nothing permanent.
So it was up to Childress.
"I think everyone needs an opportunity," Childress said. "And I see something in Kerry. I'd just like to see him get the right opportunity. I think we can get him a good opportunity here."
Hutchens doesn't think Childress felt any pressure to offer Earnhardt the chance.
"I don't think he looked at it as something he had to do; I think he looked at it as something he wanted to do," Hutchens said. "He's been wanting to do this for a year, year and a half, but he hasn't had the cars, the resources, the people all in the position to be able to do it without affecting what we already had going.
"Finally, we got to a point where we felt we had some people and some equipment where he thought we could do it and give Kerry a fair shot."
Earnhardt had been trying to persuade Childress to field a car for him, and when Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, a mutual friend, suggested a mini-schedule with his company as sponsor, the plan came together.
But race teams are expensive, and sentimentality will not foster the team if Earnhardt does not perform, Childress said.
"If we can't get him the right opportunity, I'm going to tell him either we couldn't get the car as good as we thought it was or you need to work on something yourself," Childress said. "That's how we are with the drivers."
Childress leaves open the chance that a successful effort could land Earnhardt a full-time job at RCR. He hesitates to suggest it could be in the No.3, which has not been entered in a Cup race since Earnhardt Sr.'s death.
"I've always said I'd never bring the 3 back unless an Earnhardt drove it, and I'm not saying it would be him or we wouldn't do it," Childress said. "And I don't know if the time would be right. I don't see us ever bringing it back and running it week in and week out. Some special event or something like that, maybe."
Childress quotes another famous son of a legendary father when considering the pressure on the Earnhardt boys.
"I think everybody wants to be their own man," he said. "I look at (Dale Jr.) sometimes and think back to the song Hank Williams Jr. used to sing. He said it's hard standing in the shadow of a very famous man. You think of that from Dale Jr.'s side and you can see it would be tough to be your own man."
Somewhere in the colder length of the shadow is Kerry. The product of Earnhardt Sr.'s first marriage, Kerry married young, had two kids and divorced at 21. Remarried with four children, he supported his family by working in textile mills and his father's Chevrolet dealership in Newton, N.C.
"I had a lot of responsibilities growing up in life," he said. "I started a family early and just couldn't make the time toward making racing my career. Things worked out the way they have.
"I had to make sure they had a place to live and food on the table. Starting out in racing you can't promise that because you've got a lot to go through. If I tried to live off racing and supporting my family, there was no way I could have done it."
Meanwhile, Dale Jr., 29, from his father's second marriage, became the most popular driver in NASCAR for a team that bears the family name. He didn't meet Kerry until he was 16.
Kerry Earnhardt contends there is no jealousy.
"We have family outings, we see each other here and there at the shop," said Kerry Earnhardt, whose oldest son, Bobby, 16, works on Dale Jr.'s late-model race team and on his farm. "It's hard with the schedule we have and he's out on the road a lot and he's doing what he loves, but the time we have together we really appreciate and enjoy.
"He's achieved and accomplished a lot, and he's been through a lot to get there like everyone else."
And Dale. Jr. supports his half-brother's attempt to compete in Nextel Cup.
"I'm really interested to see what kind of equipment Richard gave him," he said. "I hope it's good stuff. I'd like to see him be able to make the most of this opportunity."
Growing up Earnhardt made things easy in some ways, harder in others.
"You had to listen and you still had to do your homework and everything," Kerry Earnhardt said. "You couldn't do what you wanted all the time.
"He was like any father. He'd spend time with the kids and then he'd turn around and punish you at the same time to let you know right from wrong."
When his sons and daughter Kelly, 31, became interested in cars, Earnhardt Sr. turned them over to trusted friends and got out of the way..
"He supported us driving and stuff, and we were let alone to do it on our own as far as repairing the vehicles and everything," Kerry Earnhardt said. "He'd have some advice here and there and when we actually done wrong, he'd let us know what we did wrong. He never really ever gave us anything - he made us work for it."
It is a lesson he appreciates more now.
"I think I respect things a lot more than I did," he said. "When you have an opportunity you have to take advantage of it."
Or you move on.