Posted by John
on December 1, 2008, 10:10 pm, in reply to "Straight up."
Admin | Message modified by user John December 1, 2008, 10:11 pm
You know I'll tell you the truth! LOL.
Dale was a bit of a genius when it came to business. He could take coal and turn it into diamonds. Teresa helped him do that. They were a team. When Dale died, the team was gone.
I have no knowledge of Dale Jr.'s relationship with Teresa when he was a kid. I do know that Teresa helped raise Dale jr. and his sister though. Do they owe her anything? Does any step child owe their step parent anything? It's hard to say. I grew up in that situation, but haven't been close to my step-father since I was 18. He's in his '90's now.
Speaking from a former race car driver's point of view, I would have dropped the family team in a second if someone like Hendrick had come along and asked me to drive for him. If you race, you always want to be in the fastest car with the best chance of winning. I would have done it and my family would have understood. They knew in the long run, I would have taken care of them if I'd won a lot of races. I can't fault Dale Jr. for leaving DEI for Hendrick.
On a side note, I watched Dale Jr. grow up. I was never a friend, but I did see him around quite a bit. Dale Jr. was a lot like his dad, always watching, always studying, always trying to see what made the difference. I once watched him spend some time studying his dad's car in the Busch series. It was like he took in every detail, and he never missed a fraction of an inch of the details of that car.
I remember thinking at that time that he would grow up and drive a race car.
His style is different from his father's, but his study of detail and his thought process probably doesn't fall far from the tree. His grandfather was in my eyes the ultimate racer. He knew when to charge, he knew when to lay back and save the car for the next race.
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