USA TODAY International Edition
EARNHARDT WISE TO CHOOSE HEALTH
Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t likely to win a Sprint Cup championship.
That’s not just because only two drivers — Bobby Allison at 45 in 1983 and Dale Jarrett at 42 in 1999 — have claimed their first title at NASCAR’s highest level past 41, the age of NASCAR’s most popular driver.
It’s not that 41 — 42 in October — is old, because in an era of a heightened awareness of personal health and advances in the science of keeping man and machine sound, it certainly is not.
It’s not because he doesn’t have the talent or the resources. A winner of 26 Sprint Cup races — including the Daytona 500 twice — Earnhardt is a member of a Hendrick Motorsports team that has won a record 11 Cup titles and is one of the powerful elite in the garage.
Earnhardt might never win that elusive championship, one reason being that he’s smart enough to know it won’t define him. He’s willing to step away, if required, before the pursuit ruins him. And he has a strong enough inner circle to support him in such a decision about what happens beyond the race car. That all was clear Wednesday, when — after consulting with doctors — he said he would miss at least two more races ( he ceded his car at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend) while suffering from concussion- like symptoms.
In many ways, Earnhardt could have been trapped in the shadow and by the legacy of his late and legendary father and namesake, a seven- time Cup champion. He didn’t consider a NASCAR career his birthright — he worked as a mechanic in his father’s car dealership and assumed that might very well be his lot — and could have been forgiven for not wanting anything to do with what came from sharing the name and career of one of the most successful and beloved to ever undertake the vocation. But Junior has staked out his own path.
Make no mistake, he has benefited greatly from the enterprise of being a NASCAR driver, with pressure and scrutiny the tradeoff. He has been a leader, an icon, a ticket seller and a loyal and loving ambassador for a sport he values as part of his fabric. But, as it became apparent that his career couldn’t follow the path of his dad — not the way modern, parity-laden NASCAR works — and as he matures into an older man, there seems to be a great awareness of the space he occupies.
It’s heartening to a see a man who knows how much the sport can take from you — such was the case Feb. 18, 2001, when his father died in a crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500 — display the character and confidence to stop, briefly, for now, when all too many pressures and responsibilities could coerce him to ignore the nausea and balance problems and climb into the No. 88 Chevrolet this weekend at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Earnhardt could have attempted to hide his symptoms, but he didn’t. His chances of qualifying for the Chase for the Sprint Cup diminish with each opportunity to capture a first win and his playoff ticket or to fortify his position inside the advancement boundary with seven races left in the regular season. That’s a fair trade in the broader view, too.
There could come a moment when Earnhardt must make a decision about his longer- term future. This is the second time since 2012 he has decided to cede his race car for two weekends. It takes less and less to incur those nagging symptoms each time there is a crash, a less- than- crash, a jostle, after all. He might have to step away. And he might never fulfill the dream that so many of his rabid fans had for him.
That’s all right. This decision has to be selfishly about him and his health beyond the helmet. He seems strong enough to make it.
That is a legacy that can inspire those who follow him as much as the one his father left behind.