Weekend That Was: Junior

Perhaps the best decision Dale Earnhardt Jr. made last week was the one he didn't make.

Illustrating a level of savvy and understanding of all aspects of his sport that one might think he doesn't possess at first cursory glance, Earnhardt could only chuckle at the media speculation that he was leaving his current job as driver of the No. 8 car for Dale Earnhardt Inc. to begin his own Nextel Cup team at his fledging JR Motorsports operation.

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He is way too smart for that.

Once it became clear that Earnhardt was going to be leaving DEI at the conclusion of this season, reports initially ran rampant that Junior was going to immediately expand his JR Motorsports organization and enter the NASCAR fray as a Cup owner/driver. Not only was he going to do it for himself, but most of the initial reports had him bringing fellow DEI driver and good friend Martin Truex Jr. along for the ride -- or should we say in one of the supposed rides.

It didn't take long for Junior to set everyone straight on that. He loves what he is getting into as an owner at JR Motorsports, but at this point he has no plans to expand into the Cup side. He even said he's resisting the urge, however strong, to occasionally run an additional Busch Series car for himself out of his own shop.

"We'd have to hire some more people, which I'm against," he said.

He went on to joke that his sister and esteemed business adviser, Kelley Earnhardt Elledge, who also happens to be president of JR Motorsports, "would have no problem with that," while making it clear that he would make the final decision and that he's very careful about how he spends his own money in this crazy racing business.

"We're that small of a company where those are pretty big decisions," he said about the possibility of expanding by even a handful of employees.

Of course, had he made the decision to start a couple of Cup teams, or even just one, he would have had to hire a whole lot more people and pay them a whole lot more. Plus, he would have had to sink millions into upgrading his just-opened facility in Mooresville, N.C. Even then, there would be no guarantees of the type of immediate on-track success that Junior desperately is seeking.

J.D. Gibbs, president of Joe Gibbs Racing, said the other day that whenever his organization has added another Cup team in the past, it has been roughly 18 months before all the kinks were worked out and folks within the company felt that team could truly be competitive on a weekly basis. And that's coming from an established Cup operation.

Going it alone, Junior would have found it tough going not only right from the start but for the foreseeable future as well. He and his sister have not completely ruled it out, but it does not appear to be an option that they hope to have to resort to -- and no one expects them to have to resort to it, either. (Continued)