Feb
9
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Wants Majority Ownership of DEI
February 9, 2007 | Posted by VroomDude
After much sniping back and forth with his step-mom Teresa Earnhardt and the opining of all sorts of people, Junior’s finally coming out and saying what everyone already knew:
“The main factor is the ownership part,” Earnhardt Jr. said Thursday at NASCAR’s annual preseason media day at Daytona International Speedway. “It has nothing to do with money and nothing else really. … My father has been gone for five, six years now. I want majority ownership. That’s basically it.”
It’s pretty rare that tricky situations involving death, inheritance, money, and family would be pretty clear-cut, as far as the correct resolution, but I think this is one of those situations.
Give Junior majority ownership. It’s just that easy.
(Contact me for bank wire details as far as where you can send my consulting fee, Teresa.)
I’ll admit that I’m a Junior fan and would tend to side with him, even if it was less clear-cut, but there’s no logical reason to be stubborn and fight the fact that he wants to be in charge of DEI. From a sheer dollars and cents prospective, it’d be a huge mistake to force him out of DEI over this issue, as he’d just make Richard Childress a whole boatload of money if you do that, money that would have otherwise remained in your boat.
As far as the operations of the team itself and results on the track, DEI hasn’t exactly had a laser-sharp focus of late, and this year could be even more schizophrenic if they don’t resolve Junior’s status soon. Would Junior be a great owner and whip everything immediately into tip-top shape? Honestly, I doubt it, as I don’t think he’s really ready for that role and responsibility. But it also wouldn’t make things any worse, and he’d be pretty damn personally motivated to go out there and post awesome results on the track, if he did get a majority ownership stake.
The last piece of the pie is simply the family tradition of racing. Ignoring everything else, does anyone honestly think that Dale Senior would want to see Junior forced out, when his desire was to step up and run DEI? They obviously didn’t have the most copacetic, peaceful of relationships, but I just can’t believe that he’d be happy with the current state of affairs, especially if this culminates in Junior leaving for another team, or to start up his own.
Which is a really long-winded way of saying give Junior what he wants. It’s the right thing to do, from whatever angle you want to examine the situation.