hendrick motor sports

More than three months after he said he would drive a racecar for Hendrick Motorsports in 2008, Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced yesterday that his car would carry No. 88 and would be sponsored by Amp Energy Drink and the National Guard.

"I never thought a car number would create as much excitement as it did in this situation," said Rick Hendrick, Earnhardt's future boss.

Earnhardt's announcement, made at a news conference at the Dallas Convention Center and carried live by the Speed Network, was probably the most eagerly awaited moment of the Nextel Cup season. Almost anything Earnhardt plugs tends to sell.

Earnhardt, whose current No. 8 car is sponsored by Budweiser, remains the series's most popular and marketable driver, even though he did not qualify for the Chase for the Nextel Cup this year, his last with Dale Earnhardt Inc., a company started by his father, the seven-time series champion Dale Earnhardt Sr.

"The whole retail industry was literally waiting down to the minute to the point when his new car became available," Mark Dyer, the president and chief executive of Motorsports Authentics, a Nascar-licensed merchandiser, said in a telephone interview.

"I think he's in the absolute top echelon of American sports celebrities. Certainly, it helps that he's the son of a real American icon, but he stands on his own as a sports identity."

Hendrick Motorsports announced July 13 that Anheuser-Busch, which makes Budweiser, would not continue to sponsor Earnhardt's car. On Aug. 15, Hendrick said Earnhardt would not continue to drive the No. 8 car.

PepsiCo, which manufactures Amp Energy Drink, has been a sponsor of Hendrick's cars for 12 years. Earnhardt's cars will also carry the logo of Mountain Dew, a PepsiCo product that has been a Nascar sponsor for almost 50 years.

Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, the director of the National Guard, said that sponsoring Earnhardt's car made business sense, because stock-car racing has a wide appeal to National Guard members ― and American men and women who may sign up.

The pursuit of a number for Earnhardt became the subject of great intrigue. Earnhardt wanted to continue driving the No. 8 car, but Teresa Earnhardt, Dale Sr.'s widow, did not want to part with the number. He looked for a number with an 8 in it.

Hendrick got No. 88 from Robert Yates Racing. Kelly Earnhardt, Dale Jr.'s sister, first inquired about No. 28, which Yates was not using. Instead, Yates transferred No. 88, a number used by Earnhardt's grandfather Ralph to Hendrick.

"Ralph Earnhardt drove the No. 88 Olds in 1957, and because of this number's history with the Earnhardt family, I felt car No. 88 should continue with Dale Earnhardt Jr.," Robert Yates said in a statement.

Drivers in the No. 88 car have won 65 races at Nascar's top level, compared with 38 for the No. 8. Included in a long list of No. 88 drivers are such stars as Ricky Rudd, Bobby Allison, Dale Jarrett, Benny Parsons, Fireball Roberts and Darrell Waltrip.

"I like the fact that the number has some history," Earnhardt said.

The No. 8 car will be sponsored by the United States Army next year and will be driven by Mark Martin and Aric Almirola.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. figured quantity would mean quality in choosing a new number to please his massive legion of followers.
"They can be twice as happy about the situation," NASCAR's most popular driver said during a news conference Wednesday in Dallas, unveiling his switch from No. 8 to 88 in the move to powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports next season.
The green and white of Mountain Dew Amp Energy drink and blue and white of the National Guard will adorn Earnhardt's Chevrolet after seven seasons with its ubiquitous red Budweiser scheme.
Earnhardt said the new number had to include an 8 "to do good by fans." Several combinations were considered before settling on 88 for its sentimental value. Earnhardt's grandfather once drove the No. 88, whose all-star roster includes past champions Bobby Allison, Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace, Benny Parsons and Joe Weatherly.
The number belonged the past 11 years to Robert Yates Racing, which won the 1999 title with an 88 driven by Dale Jarrett, an Earnhardt confidante.
"It has some history that I'm excited about," Earnhardt said. "That was what the other options lacked. They didn't have any true greatness or substance."
Earnhardt, 32, signed new deals with Adidas and Sony earlier this year. Dawn Hudson, CEO of Pepsi-Cola North America, said a Super Bowl ad with Earnhardt was "very much under consideration."
Bowyer suddenly hot
The most unheralded driver entering the 10-race, 12-man championship runoff suddenly has become its most celebrated.
"We've got a legitimate shot at this," says Clint Bowyer, who led 222 of 300 laps in Sunday's Chase for the Nextel Cup opener at New Hampshire International Speedway. "It's opened a lot of people's eyes."
Not many were paying attention to Bowyer outside of Emporia, Kan., which proclaimed July 7 as "Clint Bowyer Day" - 7-7-07 for his No. 07 Chevrolet. The 28-year-old concedes he still isn't the most famous to hail from his hometown; the city of about 30,000 between Kansas City and Wichita also claims journalist William Allen White.
But barely a decade after deciding to race cars for a living, Bowyer knows NASCAR's most coveted championship is within his grasp. After his Sylvania 300 victory, Bowyer is fourth in the standings, 15 points out of first.
"Anybody who thinks that team isn't dangerous had their head covered in the sand," Richard Childress Racing (RCR) teammate Jeff Burton says. "Clint is the future of our sport."
Bowyer trails only former champions Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, and the Chase favorites all say Bowyer deserves title consideration in his second Cup season.
"He's going to be on all the channels and see his face and name up there on ESPN and every other racing show," Gordon says.
Fox analyst Darrell Waltrip isn't ready to proclaim Bowyer a title contender but says winning should come easier for a driver still learning to shake a short-track mentality."The hardest thing when you get to Cup is learning how to run long races," Waltrip says. "You have to realize that you've got all day. In short track racing, you got to do it all yourself. It ain't about learning how to drive. It's learning how to pace yourself."
CHASE FOR THE CUP POINTS
1. Jimmie Johnson 5,210
1. Jeff Gordon 5,210
3. Tony Stewart 5,200
4. Clint Bowyer 5,195
5. Kyle Busch 5,175
6. Martin Truex Jr. 5,170
7. Matt Kenseth 5,156
8. Carl Edwards 5,147
9. Denny Hamlin 5,128
10. Kevin Harvick 5,122
11. Jeff Burton 5,119
12. Kurt Busch 5,108
With Dale Earnhardt Jr. set to come on board at Hendrick Motorsports in 2008, he'll join an already incredibly successful program in which Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson have combined to win five Cup championships and 108 races going into Sunday's event at Dover. Can it work? Will there simply be too many roosters in the hen house?

Hendrick has a long history of mixing strong personalities. The outspoken Northerner Geoffrey Bodine was already a fixture at Hendrick Motorsports in the late 1980s when not one, but two outspoken characters joined the organization. Tim Richmond dominated the sport in 1986, a year before Darrell Waltrip entered the picture.


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Bodine, Richmond, Waltrip, Ken Schrader, Ricky Rudd, Ricky Craven, Terry Labonte, Brian Vickers, Kyle Busch, Casey Mears -- Hendrick has somehow managed to integrate them all into the grand scheme of things. Some have obviously fit better into the Hendrick Motorsports mold than others, but the car owner will be doing everything in his power to make the deal with Earnhardt work.

He has to.

"Junior's got teammates now, so it's not like he's coming from a one-man operation to something that's any different," Hendrick said at his sprawling complex a couple of miles from Lowe's Motor Speedway. "He made the decision to make a change to try to better his career.

"That puts a lot of pressure on us. We've won before and we want to see him win. We're going to do everything in our power to put the best stuff around him, just like we do with every driver that's here, to make him more successful."

This, though, seems different, a much more difficult undertaking. Gordon and Johnson are Cup champions, and Earnhardt is without question the sport's most popular driver. It's a move that gives Hendrick Motorsports three of the four top names in all of NASCAR. Sign Tony Stewart -- there's a thought that boggles the imagination -- and it'd be a clean sweep.

Still, Hendrick just doesn't seem all that concerned about making things work with Junior. See, Hendrick looks at it this way. Gordon and Johnson both race to win and they're teammates, so why not race to race to win against Junior as a teammate?

"I think you treat each individual differently," Hendrick said. "You try to create a relationship. You cannot create respect. Everybody has somebody they've got to answer to. I have to answer to sponsors, and I have to answer to fans. I think the key to our success is everybody working together."

In Gordon, Johnson and Earnhardt, Hendrick has drivers with three very separate and very distinct personalities. Gordon is Madison Avenue refined, Earnhardt is the rock star and Johnson the laid-back Californian.

Hendrick knows what he has to work with. He's not about to cram Junior into a box, to try to conform him into whatever the public's perception of what a Hendrick Motorsports driver should be. Hendrick's job is to give the superstar driver everything he needs to fulfill the expectations of Junior Nation.

"I'm not going to try to change Junior's personality," Hendrick said. "What's made him popular is who he is. We're just going to try to surround him with good stuff and try to help him get to the level he wants to get to. The same with Gordon and Johnson. All of our guys are a little different. They've got their own quirks, and you adjust to that.

"You're not going to change them, and you don't want to. Each one's a brand all his own. Jimmie and Jeff have a lot of respect for Junior. He has respect for them, and Casey's friends with all of them. I think it's going to do well."

Long ago, Hendrick learned a valuable lesson as a NASCAR team owner. He can't stand pat, resting on the laurels of the success Hendrick Motorsports has enjoyed in the past. The championships and races that the team has won in the past won't mean a thing when Junior straps into a Hendrick Motorsports entry for the first time.

Hendrick has to keep moving forward, for his sake. And Junior's, Gordon's, Johnson's and Mears'.

"Most businesses I've ever been involved in, once you get it built, at some point you get to be on cruise control," Hendrick said. "You're able to sit back and watch it work. In this [racing] business, you're only as good as you were yesterday, the last race.

"The lesson is, you've got to work. You've got to come in every single day committed to being better. You can't rest on yesterday, and you can't rest on the championship you won or even the race you won last weekend because this weekend is totally different."



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