A portion of a very long article........I will title it WHY WHY WHY???
So it was nice Wednesday, with the sun shining and a slight Sonoma breeze cooling the world-class 16-turn track at Infineon Raceway's Karting Center, for Earnhardt to escape it all, climb into a hopped-up Go-Kart and take some turns.
He went five laps against an aspiring racer, Andrew Wolocatiuk, 11, of Petaluma, hitting 60 mph in the straightaway midway through to overtake the younger driver at the finish.
To be brutally honest, it goes down as Earnhardt's first race victory of the season.
As a dozen TV cameras focused in for a postrace chat, Earnhardt leaned over to Wolocatiuk and quietly handed him his racing gloves under the table, away from prying eyes.
"Hang on to these,'' he whispered to the youngster. "You'll grow into them. They're pretty good gloves.''
Then he turned to face the media questions once again.
Why isn't he winning? Why did DEI decide to swap crews, cars and crew chiefs with teammate Michael Waltrip in the offseason, a move that ultimately proved fortuitous for Waltrip (14th overall) by giving him the faster, more aerodynamic cars and better management?
Why cut the cord with his longtime race crew, headed by his cousins the Eury's, Tony Jr. and Sr.?
Why, after only 11 races into 2005, did he dump his new crew chief, Pete Rondeau, in favor of an interim chief, Steve Hmiel. Since that change, Earnhardt has not finished better than 22nd.
In times like these, amid family squabbles on his race team and blown tires and bad engines, Earnhardt knows he could really use his old man.
"I think I miss him more during the hard stuff than when we're winning,'' Earnhardt concedes. "You know, say I was to go out tomorrow in Alabama and bag a 17-point buck, I think my dad would say, 'yeah, that was cool.'
"When you're thinking about, 'Man, I've got to make this decision, and is this the right thing to do, when I'm thinking about doing this with the company, what would he think?' That's when you need him.
"That's when he was really handy.''
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/23/SPG47DDH1R1.DTL&feed=rss.sports
Someone admitting Mikey was getting Krap Kars???