The Rise of Jr.

The past three weeks Dale Earnhardt Jr has exited his car with a smile on his face. To a casual fan this may seem like a useless fact, but to die hard fans this is huge. He's finally happy again, happy with the car, with the team, and with the results. It seems like when Jr is happy, good things happen. Hopefully this momentum will carry over to this weekends Nationwide race at Daytona where Jr will be driving the #3 Wrangler Chevy, a tribute to his father. No way to sugar coat it, when people see the #3 on the track, they expect it to succeed. Anything less than a win will be slightly disappointing, and even worse, if he wrecks, there will be a firestorm of critique on how he did not live up to his fathers standards, and to everyone's expectations. I wish Jr. all the best, this is an emotional burden I would not wish on anyone.

Being a Jr fan, i'm really hoping he wins both Friday and Saturday, but also being a Jr fan, I keep waiting for the team to backslide again. It's happened too many times for me not to wonder when it will happen again. Perhaps this is the rise of Jr and the 88 team though. Only time will tell.