Earnhardt’s start proves ‘99 was no fluke

Mike Harris

Thursday, March 16, 2000 | 11:15 a.m.

The man in black is back.

Coming off his victory last Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Dale Earnhardt looks serious about winning a record eighth Winston Cup championship.

Earnhardt, for the most part a nonfactor since taking NASCAR's top division in 1994, is third in the series standings and running strong as the circuit moves to Darlington, S.C. His win in Hampton, Ga., was his fourth in the last 30 races.

In recent seasons, the 48-year-old driver has been far off the pace at many tracks, leading to talk that young stars like Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte - and older ones like Mark Martin and Dale Jarrett - were now better. But Earnhardt kept plugging away in his black No. 3 Monte Carlo - and now he's back.

"I never had any problem being determined," The Intimidator said. "I work hard trying to stay focused on the job at hand."

But that can be difficult these days with increasing obligations to his team, sponsors and own businesses.

For Earnhardt, 39th in the latest Forbes magazine ranking of the world's top 100 celebrities in overall earnings and power, there are many distractions. Although he still drives for longtime car owner and friend Richard Childress, Earnhardt now owns his own team, which fields Chevrolets for son Dale Jr. and Steve Park.

"Richard and everyone in the garage will tell you there's a lot more going on than there was in the '80s," Earnhardt said. "There's a lot of things happening now that a driver didn't have to contend with before.

"How do you focus on all of it and keep it going in the right direction?"

That's where Don Hawk comes in.

He's the president of Dale Earnhardt Inc., a growing business empire that includes the racing team, souvenir sales and other businesses unrelated to stock car racing.

"I take as much off his shoulders as I can," Hawk said. "But Dale Earnhardt is a man who likes to keep his finger on things and wants to know everything that's going on.

"But he has the ability to put things aside and concentrate on his main job - driving that race car."

For a while, that didn't seem so easy. The victories stopped coming, and just a top-10 finish was becoming acceptable to the legion of Earnhardt fans.

But he won three times last year and had 21 top-10 finishes. Now, after his No. 75th career victory, Earnhardt is truly on a roll.

After contending in the season-opening Daytona 500, a lack of drafting help left him 21st. The next week, he was second, then eighth, then a winner.

In that victory, Earnhardt held off Atlanta master Labonte by less than 2 feet to win the Cracker Barrel 500. He trails series leader Labonte by just 68 points after four of 34 races.

Earnhardt appears to have made a complete recovery from a career-worst 59-race winless streak that ended in the 1998 Daytona 500. Winning NASCAR's biggest race after coming up short in 19 previous tries got Earnhardt moving forward again.

His spirits peaked after Childress shifted crew chiefs in the middle of that season, moving established Larry McReynolds to Mike Skinner's team and bringing over upstart Kevin Hamlin.

"There was nothing wrong with Larry," Earnhardt said. "He's a great crew chief and a good person. But with Kevin, we just seem to have a way of knowing what the other one wants."

Whatever the reason for his resurgence, Earnhardt now must be considered a serious threat his break his tie with Richard Petty and win his eighth championship.

Childress wouldn't be surprised.

"Dale Earnhardt can still win plenty of races," he said. "And we can't forgot about that championship, either."