Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Rick Hendrick crack up the media

Daytona Beach, Fl

Late Saturday night, in the media center at Daytona International Speedway, felt more like a comedy club than a post-race interview.

Car owner, Rick Hendrick, who has had a personal life with as much drama as old Will Shakespeare could imagine, turned into a straight man for his newest driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., who had just won the Bud Shootout. It was like a great weight had lifted off Hendrick who had suffered many personal tragedies in the past.

Fans and media alike had anticipated that the Bud Shootout would be a continuation of the back to the old days of rough and tumble driving after the Friday night fights involving Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart in night practice. Instead it was a pretty clean race.

In the media center Junior was asked if he thought there would be more leniency from NASCAR for aggressive behavior he responded “I think they’re going back to let us run over each other.” Then with a wicked look he added,“so, get ready, I’m going to walk around with my dukes up all day long. You got to watch both hands.”

Hendrick looked out at the audience, spied Jim Hunter, NASCAR’s vice president for corporate communications, and the NASCAR spokesman who addressed the Busch and Stewart altercation of Friday night and said “Jim, you want to come up here?”

Rethinking his statement Junior wanted to make something clear, changing the tone of his voice “all of it was a joke. Didn’t mean a word of it -- Jim.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Later Junior was talking about sending high fashion sunglasses to US troops in Iraq, again Mr. Hendrick said, slightly under his breath, “how about some Junior shirts?”

The best laugh came about after a serious question concerning the pressure to win at Hendrick. Junior said he didn’t feel pressured until after the checkered flag fell. He (Rick) said ‘do something different.’”

The only problem was Junior didn’t know how do a different kind of burnout. By the way it was a very good burnout. Still he was worried “I said ‘dang’” noting -- if he didn’t do something different -- Hendrick would be angry.

He really didn’t have anything to worry about, Hendrick interrupted again “ I don’t know why I said that,…it was kind of stupid wasn’t it?”

Other than the late hour it was a very amusing way to end the night, I made sure to tip the waiter on the way out.

Matinee –

Even a commercial press conference, usually one of the dullest events of the day, resulted in a laughs in the afternoon. The Gillette Young Guns program debuted their 2008 advertising campaign with a television commercial with WWE star John Cena, that promised to surpass their 2007 version.

That was the one where drivers woke up with Mohawk haircuts done surreptitiously by Ryan Newman. Newman, who had been one of shyer drivers in the garage, at least to some of the media, volunteered how last year’s was done. Body doubles (actually just the heads) of actors with similar physiques were cut and pasted the drivers.

Then a female reporter asked how difficult it was keeping their five o’clock shadows were hard to prevent. Newman looked out at the audience and blurted out in her direction “jealous?”

Hope that there are funny shows next Thursday.

Free speech? Well not exactly, just ask Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Daytona Beach,

Have the rules of conduct for Sprint Cup drivers changed, specifically, in post-race interview language?

Not according to Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

“No, I don’t believe them. I don’t think anybody does,” said the driver making his Sprint Cupt debut for Hendrick Motorsports this weekend.

Then he added, rhetorically, “are we supposed to walk the line, and see where we step over it, and get fined when we go too far?

Just a few weeks ago, when NASCAR officials admitted that drivers needed more leeway in on-track conduct and speech. There was the promise of a return to a more colorful NASCAR as part of that presentation. To most of us - on the media tour - that meant we were, again, to expect drivers really say what was on their minds and not worry about the consequences.

Flash back to Talladega, October 2004, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. uttered a forbidden curse word in the moment of celebrating his win there. NASCAR officials slapped him with a $10,000 fine and 25-point penalty dropping him out of first place in the points standings.

That points loss hurt much more than the dollars.

Since then he’s been a lot more circumspect in his language and has not run afoul of NASCAR officials nor language police.

At media day, going into the 50th running of the Daytona 500, Earnhardt said NASCAR’s policy was all smoke and mirrors, for now.

“I think honestly they’re playing to you guys and not talking the drivers . I think…they’re trying to appear looser when the message has not been relayed to the driver as to what’s been changed,” he said.

Then he looked some of us, straight in the eye, adding “it’s just a press release; we’re going to do this. That was a just a little card game between you, two and really has nothing to do with the drivers. I don’t feel like I’ve been holding back.

And there’s words I don’t use that I have used in the past that I shouldn’t use on National television, for me I get to be the same. I don’t feel like I’ve had to reserve myself too much."

Don't you wonder who, if anyone, is going to test that new line drawn in the sand?