Why is Dale Earnhardt Jr riding a camel?

The question on everyone’s mind at the 2008 Hendrick Motorsports media day was – Why is Dale Earnhardt Jr riding a camel?

The media event featured appearances by Rick Hendrick, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears.

Hendrick Media Day was held at the new Hendrick Team Center which is housed in the old No. 24 race shop – in fact, Jeff Gordon and his team won 3 championships working out of this building.

The annual event is basically a meet and greet for the media and drivers to get together and talk about the upcoming race season.

Rick Hendrick spoke first and described the Hendrick Motorsports team philosophy in one motto, “Accelerate in ’08.”

It didn’t take Hendrick long to get around to talking about the new additions to his team. “We’re excited to have Dale Earnhardt Jr and Tony Eury Jr here”, Hendrick said. “We’re sort of like family.”

Rick Hendrick didn’t seem content to sit on his laurels after finishing first and second in last year’s championship chase. “We’re tied for last place” Hendrick said, referring to the start of a new season. “We’re focused on coming out of the gate strong in ‘08."

Jeff Gordon made a brief statement, and it didn’t take long for Dale Jr to come up in the conversation. “There was a lot of unknowns concerning Junior,” Gordon said. “He has really stepped up in a way I am really impressed with.”

“You never know how he’s going to mix – I’ve been extremely impressed.”

When it was Dale Jr’s turn at the mic Doug Rice asked him if there was a sense of relief when you finally get to Daytona and start racing.

“I’ll be honest with you, Daytona can get there when it gets here,” said Earnhardt. “I’m enjoying everything – every minute. I couldn’t wait for the sun to come up today so we could get this on.”

“The race cars look amazing when I go into the shop. They look so good from the inside out.”

“The season will be here before we know it,” Earnhardt said confidently.

Then Doug Rice had one final comment for the new driver of the No. 88. “You still didn’t explain why there’s a picture of you on top of a camel here,” Rice said, smiling.

That drew a laugh from Junior and the crowd. “Well yeah, climbing on a camel was fun”, Junior said smiling. “You’d be surprised how much fun all that was – if it gets me in the Superbowl I’ll get on a camel.”

That was all Dale Jr would say about the camel – but I’ll be watching the Superbowl just to see him ride it.

Will you?

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Junior Testing in Daytona Today

Dale Earnhardt Jr begins testing with Hendrick Motorsports at Daytona International Speedway on Monday.

Sprint Cup testing continues this week for drivers who did not test last week. The test is set to run 3 days this week, Monday through Wednesday.

Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin will also see track time, this time in a Toyota.

Tests are also scheduled at Las Vegas and California Speedway before racing cranks up in Daytona for Speedweeks.

The 50^th running of the Daytona 500 is set for on February 17.

Speed read:

What: Sprint Cup testing for the Daytona 500.

Where: Daytona International Speedway.

When: Monday through Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET

Who: Stanton Barrett, Dave Blaney, Jeff Burton, Patrick Carpentier, Dale

Earnhardt Jr., Bill Elliott, Dario Franchitti, David Gilliland, Denny

Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Sam Hornish Jr., Dale Jarrett, Kasey Kahne, Bobby

Labonte, Sterling Marlin, Jamie McMurray, Paul Menard, Ryan Newman,

David Ragan, Scott Riggs, Boris Said, Ken Schrader, Regan Smith, Tony

Stewart, Brian Vickers, Michael Waltrip.

Is Dale Earnhardt Jr getting too big for NASCAR?

It seems that Dale Earnhardt Jr is getting plenty of blame these days.

Sales of official NASCAR souvenirs and merchandise were down in 2007 – someone in NASCAR said that was due to Dale Jr switching teams, and fans that stopped buying his No. 8 merchandise.

TV ratings were down in 2007 – many blamed that on Junior’s failure to win a race.

Interest in the Chase was down in 2007 – can we blame Junior because he wasn’t in it?

The truth is you can’t blame Earnhardt for lackluster souvenir sales. While overall sales were down, Junior’s sales were actually up.

While TV ratings continue to decline, it’s not just NASCAR that is taking a beating. Virtually all sports are suffering declining ratings. Maybe it’s due to more coverage on the internet and the availability of all NASCAR races on Sirius satellite radio.

Would more people have tuned in to the Chase if Dale Jr were in it? Probably.

But one man cannot carry NASCAR. No sport can afford to have a single player be their entire draw.

Dale Jr doesn’t need to change anything. He just needs to race. Everyone else just needs to cut him some slack. Enough with the hype, let’s get back to racing.