The Junior Files

Last July, just a scant four and one half months following
the tragic death of his father at Daytona International Speedway, Dale Earnhardt
Jr took the checkered flag at the track that claimed his father. It was this
track where a large part of the Senior E legend was built. It is only fitting
that his son score a timely and healing win on that same pavement.

Shortly thereafter, I was made aware of an article on the
Business Week web site. This article and others of its ilk from members of the
NASCAR come lately press soon would raise the asinine specter of the “fix”
being in for Dale Jr at the Pepsi 400. We who have watched the drama of Winston
Cup Racing unfold for countless years knew much better. It’s a funny little
thing called fate. Or maybe kismet? Or just maybe the unseen hand striking the
balance in one young man’s life? All we know for sure, we who know better, is
there was no fix. Was the fix also in for Alan Kulwicki in November of ’92?

Was the fix also in this winter in New York City? A mild,
relatively snow free winter in the city proper came on the heels of the World
Trade Center attack. 343 public servants lost their lives with the others. Was
the fix in there as well for the benefit of those remaining public servants with
the unpleasant task of sorting through the rubble for the remains of the fallen?
Of course it was. It’s called a divine fix. A little bit of right to counter a
big wrong.

Since Dale Jr’s loss in Daytona, his personal loss, he
has been under the microscope even more so than before. He will get praised and
punished for his performance on the track by all of us in the racing press. That
comes with the territory and he knows it. Much like the “fix” articles from
last July, once in a while a really vile piece of trash crosses my desk that
raises my ire to the point at which I must say something in response. One such
article came from the hand of a knuckle dragger named Paul Finebaum who pretends
to write over at Mobile Register.

I preface my comments two ways here. First, I have already
broken the Cardinal Rule of writing here by launching a direct attack on a
fellow member of the media. He has it coming. Second, I urge you to contact his
superiors and demand his ousting post haste. He has it coming.

Mr. Finebaum’s article came in two parts. First was a
totally unwarranted hatchet job on Dale Jr. The second piece was an attack on
those who dared express their displeasure with his brand of bile. Let’s
forget, just for the moment, that there were other targets more easily had and
much more deserving at the time Mr. Finebaum wrote his articles. Our friend
ignored the real news to launch a personal tirade on Dale Jr. He obviously has a
personal axe to grind with Dale. That’s the only thing that could explain the
timing of his article. I guess the thought of Dale finding victory lane at yet
another super speedway, Talladega, was just too much for the man to stomach. If
you actually follow NASCAR for more than ten minutes, it’s common knowledge
that a DEI car, any DEI car, is threat to win on a big track. That’s the
story, but not the story Mr. Finebaum chose to write.

Here is what he chose write:

“However, through the chilling darkness the son also
rose, namely Dale Earnhardt Jr. When Junior won the next race at Daytona in
July, the scene under the night-lights was among the most electric the sports
world had ever seen. It was almost too good to be true, leading some skeptics to
question whether the fix was in.”

So tell us Mr. Finebaum, might you be one of those
skeptics? He goes on to study in great detail what the true ramifications are of
that win and what it meant to our sport:

“But since then, Dale Jr., who will be among the
favorites Sunday at Talladega in the Aaron’s 499, has worked tirelessly to
decapitate the reputation of his late and great father and has succeeded
spectacularly. Quite simply, Dale Jr., who won the EA Sports 500 at Talladega in
October, is a disgusting and despicable punk that no decent person would want
coming home with their daughter.”

Ah ha! Mr. Finebaum is worried about the role model status
of Junior Earnhardt it would seem. Media role models are important, aren’t
they? It must be far easier for the Finebaums of the world to point at an icon
on the television screen and command their offspring to “be like Mike.” God
forbid we do any actual hands on parenting! Tough life in that ivory tower of
yours, eh Paul? He drones on:

“Even though Daddy Earnhardt was often out on the edge,
always stirring up trouble, he was still a role model for many and there is no
question he is rolling over in his grave at some of Junior’s antics and remarks.
Take Playboy …. gladly. In an interview with the skin mag (hey, a man has to
do research), Junior joked about his sexual prowess with graphic description,
talking quantity like he was the reincarnation of Wilt Chamberlain.”

So it is about role models! It is about abdication of your
parental responsibilities if indeed you have chosen to breed. Is Mr. Finebaum
saying that the Senior Earnhardt was a good role model where Junior is not? Can
anyone in this backwoods, hillbilly sport born of moon shining measure up to his
lofty standards for role modeling? I wouldn’t think so. Certainly any
Earnhardt is rotten in Mr. Finebaum’s eyes since they were born of the same
apple barrel, right?

Playboy? Golly! A Playboy interview that touches on sex?
Unheard of Mr. Finebaum! It begs the question, did Finebaum actually do his
research, or did he just happen to find that month’s issue around the house?
Perhaps Junior was just being candid in the interview, and maybe over
embellishing a bit. What man wouldn’t? Mr. Finebaum? Painfully, there is more
from this cretin:

“In countless media interviews, Junior drops F-bombs
with the regularity of a dog visiting fire hydrants on an evening walk.
Meanwhile, crowds flock to his outings. People clamor to touch him. But the kid
has the class of a Las Vegas hooker at 4 a.m.”

And where was Mr. Finebaum when Dale Jarrett’s crew
chief dropped the MF- bomb on national television? Or when Rusty Wallace dropped
a GD at Bristol? The sport is sponsored in part by beer and tobacco concerns.
There are people in the sport who drink, smoke, and even swear. Not one person
in NASCAR is claiming altar boy status. I challenge Mr. Finebaum to lay down in
turn 1 at 179 mph, slap the wall, then get up and say; “Ah shucks!” Tell us
Mr. Finebaum that you yourself haven’t dropped an F-bomb or two when the
cleaner over starches your collars. Are you truly without sin? Yeah, there’s
more:

“It’s difficult to follow in a father’s footsteps,
whether you are John F. Kennedy Jr. or Paul Bryant Jr. We all want sons to be
their fathers. And perhaps, at 27, Junior has a lot of growing up to do.”

This is perhaps the only passage in the article that had
any resemblance to insight. Too bad Mr. Finebaum doesn’t read his own words.
It wasn’t that long ago that Dale Jr was an employee of DEI. His focus was on
the #8 Budweiser Chevy. Overnight, he has become the patriarch of DEI. He wasn’t
given a choice. That’s quite a bit to handle at the age of 27. Compound that
with the fact that the kingdom he inherited was that of the very embodiment of
NASCAR as we know it today. Mr. Finebaum conveniently ignores the fact that the
circumstances that Dale Jr finds himself in would be overwhelming if he had the
wisdom of his father’s years. If he deals with that by throwing raves at Club
Little E, using colorful language, and squiring a lass or two, that’s okay. It
is called coping, Mr. Finebaum. Had Dale Jr just walked away from the sport
after his father’s passing, it would be journalists of your ilk that would
call him a quitter and a shell of his old man. He can’t win with journalists
like Mr. Finebaum either way because those journalists just don’t understand
what drives the sport. They don’t want to understand. And never will. Junior
has some growing up to do. He’s doing it in his own way. I fail to see the
crime in that.

In part two of Mr. Finebaum’s article, he spit his venom
at those of us willing to challenge him on his lack of understanding about Dale
Earnhardt Jr. As expected, he attacked us:

“The reaction, one might say, has been radioactive. From
voice mails to snail mail to hundreds of e-mails, the feedback has been
overwhelmingly negative, which is not surprising. What is surprising is the
majority of e-mails came from young ladies (well, perhaps that’s pushing the
hyperbole meter to extreme) and from places such as North Carolina, Tennessee,
Kentucky and Arkansas. , one thing has become crystalline. Wireless Internet
connection must be on the rise because, to show my ignorance, I wasn’t aware the
majority of locales where these e-mails originated even had electricity, to say
nothing of running water.”

This is so telling about the persona of Mr. Finebaum. Thou
art a snob. He can dish it out, but he can’t take it, hence he makes a blanket
condemnation of the Southeastern United States. If there was ANY validity to
anything he wrote, that ends here with that statement. The man views the world
through his brand of stereotypes, pure and simple. You could have a Harvard
Ph.D., but if it came with a southern drawl in your voice, you would be just
another hillbilly to him. Thou art a pompous moron. And, as morons do, he just
kept making the hole deeper:

“The consistency of the missives reminded me of an old
line I once read in Sports Illustrated about a sportswriter’s first visit to a
NASCAR event: "Race fans, I had inferred from my one visit," the
person wrote, "fell into one of two categories –tattooed, shirtless,
sewer-mouthed drunks and their husbands.”

I think we can stop right here. It is clear that Finebaum
read that line years ago, and it scared him away from actually ever going to a
racetrack. If one of his esteemed colleagues said that’s how it was, well
then, by God, that’s how it is. He will always be one of these people who did
his alleged “research” at cocktail parties while mingling with the “right”
people. He will never take the time to sit on a wooden bench at a local dirt
track to learn what it takes to rise to level of professionalism that Dale Jr
has risen to in this sport we call stock car racing.

I encourage Mr. Finebaum to leave this plebian community
of race fans behind before he dirties himself any further. I suspect he has a
fine future and will find people more to his liking in the music business. No
doubt, there are volumes to be written about Julian Lennon and how he defames
his father’s good name…

For the record, Mr. Finebaum, I reside in the People’s
Republic of Ventura, a state where the politics of meaning that you love so well
is trump. That’s NORTH of the Mason/Dixon line. So I gots my lectircity and I
gots my indoor plumin, and I gots my innernet. And I gots the branes God gimmee
to see that you ain’t bettern anybody! Let me translate that into Harvardese
for you: Self copulate, my friend!