NASCAR's Rock Star 

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is turned up to 11. In PR slang, "noise" is visibility and with that in mind, you could say that the skinny redhead from Mooresville is rocking out. In May he was featured in Rolling Stone again, this time writing about what makes the Corvette an American Icon. He's back in Playboy in June rating the best streetcars and driving music. He's been named a Most Eligible Bachelor and one of the "Sexiest Men" by People magazine. And he's on the cover of the June issue of Men's Journal, flashing that smirk under the words: "The Hottest Driver in America's Biggest Sport."To the uninitiated, this level of buzz may not sound like much. It's not like he's Thriller-era Michael Jackson popular. But he's an anomaly within the world of stock car racing. Case in point: he's in second place in the race for the championship behind his friend Matt Kenseth, the driver who beat him for Rookie of the Year in 2000. But have you seen Matt on MTV? No. And Playboy doesn't want to know what's in his CD player right now. NASCAR fans know Kenseth as a lowkey, polite, and extremely talented athlete; a consummate professional from the Midwest who week after week gets the job done. But take off his yellow and black DeWalt racing suit and even his own fans might not recognize him.

So what makes the guy in second place, the guy who finished out of the top 10 last year (11, ironically), the hottest commodity in the fastest growing sport in the country? Good question.

It's not, as some people still insinuate, that he's riding on the coattails of his father's popularity. Admittedly, the name didn't hurt and certainly he inherited a lot of brokenhearted fans, but nepotism doesn't explain the many fans he's actually brought to NASCAR since that fateful February day in 2001. It doesn't explain people like my friend Leslie, who, on the night she was celebrating getting her PhD in feminist literature, shocked everyone present by admitting that there's just something about Junior. She's never watched a single race. She saw him in an interview after his father died and was taken with how "genuine and classy" he was. The looks on the faces of her indie rock, navel-gazing pals were priceless.

But he's not, as many drooling fans assert with frightening conviction and regularity all over the "net, drop dead gorgeous. He's really kind of odd looking with his devilish eyebrows and lopsided grin.

No, the secret to Junior's je ne sais quoi (or "freedom flair") is something even more intangible and unfair than God-given ability or the mystique of royalty -- he's just really freakin' charming. His sense of humor, inexplicable sex appeal, style, and odd mixture of sincerity and bravado have made him NASCAR's most successful crossover act. But unlike Shania, Junior hasn't alienated his core crowd while reaching beyond it. And unless he's a better actor than his recent appearance on FX channel's horrendous Fast Lane implies, it seems like he's not even trying. He's just doing his thing.

And now, 11 races into the 2003 Winston Cup season, he's finally driving to match the hype.

A mere 20 points behind Kenseth going into the Coca Cola 600 in Charlotte, Junior, for the first time in his still young career in the big league, truly looks like a contender. What's most notable about his second place standing is that it's a result of something that has eluded him since entering the Winston Cup series in 2000: consistency. The ability to do well on short tracks, old tracks, new tracks and flat tracks as well as super speedways is what wins championships. That means that his six top five finishes (and eight top 10s) are ultimately more valuable than his controversial, record setting, edge-of-your-seat win at Talladega in April.

Of course, it's still early in the season and, purely by the numbers, his performance doesn't look all that different from last year's strong start. It was after his hard crash in California in 2002 that he began to struggle. What does seem to have changed is his ability to stay focused in spite of maddening setbacks and still doggedly make the best of tough situations (i.e., the Auto Club 500 in California). He's more aggressive when he needs to be (Talladega) and more patient and cautious when necessary (Richmond). He's had to start in the back three times because of engine changes after qualifying. He's been bumped out of contention by wrecking cars (Martinsville). He's lost position because of pit crew mistakes (California) or car malfunctions (Daytona). Unlike in years past, though, he's managed to keep his head about him and that's what makes him finally look like a major threat.

He began the season with a bang -- winning all three races during Speedweeks leading up to the Daytona 500. But in the big race, a "two-dollar part" broke and he finished a miserable 36th. It looked like all of last season in microcosm. Big splashy finishes followed by disastrous losses, no in-between. Then he smashed and banged his way around Rockingham for a bruised 33rd place finish. It looked more like bumper cars than Winston Cup.

His luck took a turn for the better in Vegas with a second place finish and, except for his nemesis track, Bristol, he's finished in the top 10 ever since. His pit crew, not the most consistent either in years past, were on fire in Vegas, gaining positions for him with each stop.

Though he started in the back in Atlanta the following week, it took less than 40 laps for him to weave his way to the top 10. He eventually finished third by "keeping his nose clean." Afterwards he said, "What we've had trouble with was consistency for a long run and staying fast for a long run and we were today."

At Texas, he ended up second and along the way did some crowd-pleasing Gordon bumping. He also had to start in the back in California, but made his way into the top 10 in 34 laps. A lug nut screw-up during a pit stop late in the race put him a lap down, but he still managed a sixth place finish. Clearly DEI is giving him fast cars -- and he's learned to keep his temper under control, at least while he's racing.

Then came Talladega. Darlington may have had the closest, fiercest finish of the season so far, but Talladega was all out hellacious racing with Junior providing most of the fireworks. He became the first person to win four consecutive times at that super speedway. Though the first three victories were relatively easy, the fourth one was a bitch.

Again he started in the back. He slipped through the "Big One" on lap 89 and by 107 took the lead. But he didn't cruise up front comfortably as in the past. This time his teammate Michael Waltrip wasn't there to run interference and draft with him. (He crashed on lap 83 and ended up with a 24th place finish.) Throughout the day, Junior clawed and gouged and bumped his way to the front nine times. He wore his hand out waving anybody and everybody to get behind him and push.

And with three laps to go, he dove into a three-wide pass that sent him below the yellow line and left fans gasping, fearing he'd be Black Flagged (i.e., parked). NASCAR ruled the pass legal and he got the checkered flag. Chat rooms overflowed with thrilled fans declaring their most sacred form of approval: he drove like his dad that day.

There are several factors that have no doubt led to Junior becoming, by all appearances, a more focused and consistent driver: he's more experienced, he's got more distance between himself and the specter of his father's tragic death, and he's recovered from the concussion suffered during last year's wreck in California.

Maybe even more important, though, is that he seems to have a better working relationship with his team. It's like he spent the off-season reading Drivers are from Mars, Pit Crews are from Venus. Plus, Junior has said that the personnel changes made in the off-season have rejuvenated the team. In the past, the relationship looked like a bad teenage romance - nobody knew what the other wanted or how to give it to them. Anybody listening in to his radio frequency on race days now can tell that he's both tougher with his crew and more articulate about what the car needs in order to run up front. His crew chief, Tony Eury Sr., noted this after the race at Martinsville: "He's learning the cars better and giving more information. Everything is better this season."

He even claims to have tempered his partying ways in order to focus more on the week-in and week-out work of competing for a championship. Before you get sad thinking of the infamous Club E, the nightclub in his basement, gathering dust bunnies instead of beach bunnies, rest assured he's still NASCAR's resident rock star.

He's now been in three music videos, sharing screen time with Sheryl Crow, Three Doors Down, and the Matthew Good Band (who?). Like any rock star worth his leather, he still primarily dates swimsuit models -- busty brunettes whose "acting" credits are far outnumbered by the half-nude photos of them on the Internet.

But the relatively serious and composed Junior of 2003 seems unlikely to pull stunts like last year's PR debacle in which he blew off about 800 fans waiting in line for a book signing to jet off to a Kid Rock concert. However, there's no evidence that his musical taste has improved as much as his on-track performance.

Whether all these efforts will result in the 2003 Winston Cup Championship remains to be seen. There are 24 races to go, including some tough ones that have kicked his butt in years past such as Sonoma's road course. But if his newfound focus doesn't cinch the cup this year, he's got many years of racing ahead of him. As he radioed to his crew during the race in Vegas: "Y'all just be patient "cause I'll be more patient."