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First, my apologies.
We lured all of you to our fair city and our Little House of Speed on Laburnum Avenue this weekend with the promise (we thought it was air-tight) of high drama and creative tension, of moon-lit suspense on asphalt, of NASCAR's RPM aces floorin' it for God, country and 12th in the standings.
Of a 400-lap cliff-hanger.
Sorry, not gonna happen.
The playoff field for 2007 is pretty well set, and there's not much Brian France or Dale Earnhardt Jr. can do about it. (Well, yeah, France could announce he's changing the rules forthwith to allow for 13 drivers in his merry little Chase - but most everyone this side of Earnhardt Nation and the Clydesdales stable would hoot him off the stage as if he were a nincompoop and not the whip-smart and creative genius of a sports and retail empire.)
Earnhardt specifically is 128 points out of 12th coming to RIR and on the cusp of blowing the postseason for the second time in three years. This development has the TV suits and Madison Avenue crowd overdosing on Maalox, but the face of the franchise stops a half-lap shy of a concession speech.
"It doesn't look like we are going to make it," is the way Earnhardt phrased it last Sunday at Fontana, "but we're not going to quit running till they tell us we're out."
Umm, Junior - how to put this diplomatically? - you're out. Not technically. Not mathematically.
But in actuality.
The only way for Earnhardt to go from bubble to bubbly is basically finish first, lead every lap, set a record for most programs sold in the grandstands, invent a traffic-flow plan that'll clear the parking lots a half-hour after the race (he'd get a Nobel Prize for that one) and hope Kevin Harvick has all four tires go flat, his tranny go south and his engine go poof at the starting line.
Odds of this happening: Not real good.
So that leaves race fans in general and Earnhardt rooters in particular with little to focus on or care about unless you count the minor consideration of who wins tomorrow night's race. Fortunately, there's an alternative to wandering around the grounds in a fog and wishing you could just fast-forward to Speedweeks.
As in: Obsess over Junior's car number for 2008.
Just like the Yankees, Earnhardt makes news even when he's not winning (and he hasn't since the May 2006 event at RIR - 52 starts ago). This week, he was in the headlines for package-dealing crew-chief/family-feud cousin Tony Eury Jr. into the move from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Hendrick Motorsports.
Not to mention the ongoing speculation over his next color scheme and the number that'll be plastered on the roof and sides of the Chevy he'll steer for Hendrick.
You'd think there was extra horsepower or an aerodynamic advantage riding on the new number and not just a merchandising bonanza in waiting, but several billion people are caught up in the guessing game. The one thing they know is it won't be No. 8, which Earnhardt currently sports but couldn't pry it away from stepmama Teresa after his bailout.
There's nothing sacred about No. 8, of course. If there were, Kobe Bryant wouldn't have ditched it for No. 24, a path Little E. can't follow unless he swipes it from teammate-to-be Jeff Gordon. Thus, everyone waits.
"I think the attention that has been placed on it is a little bit over the top," Earnhardt said.
Maybe so. But when the chauffeur in question can't see over the top of unlucky No. 13, there's not much else to kick around.
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