By Wright Thompson
ESPN.com
NEW YORK — Dale Earnhardt Jr. presses his head against the tinted passenger window. The black Tahoe slaloms through afternoon traffic. He's silent. He likes to be the watcher sometimes. When his helicopter flies, he peeks into backyards, checking out who has a broke-down car on blocks and who has a manicured garden. You can tell a lot about a man by his yard. He's got a flagpole in his. There's a pirate flag waving from it. He thinks that's funny as hell; if you can't change a reputation, have fun with it, at least.
A pressed Kenneth Cole shirt hangs next to him. Just a few more minutes in his ripped white T-shirt. He's going to tape "The Daily Show." It's the first stop in another jam-packed day, split into incongruent parts, each act showing a different side.
He looks at the buildings and the people and he remembers, laughing to himself. The first time he rode through these streets was 1994. He was more of a kid then, about 20. His daddy had won another Winston Cup championship and had come to New York for the awards banquet.
"I was f---ing out of my element," he explains. "I made the limo driver drive me around for a whole day looking at run-down f---ing places and hookers. I was like, 'I wanna see a hooker right now.' He'd drive there, 'There's one over there on the corner.' I'm like, 'Holy s---, a real hooker.'"
He's laughing at what a hayseed he was, and he's laughing at how far he's come in the five years since he was forced to become a star. The perpetual teenager has done some growing up, this year more than any other, struggling to move from where he was to where he wants to be. He's making progress on his journey, closer to the end than the beginning. He's 31. He owns a Busch Series team and a production company, just to name two. He hires and fires. He frets over rising gas costs.
"I think right now he's stepping out and showing he's his own man," best friend Josh Snyder says. "I think it took five years to get that confidence back. He did lean on his father for so much. That was taken from him. Now he's like, I'm trying to step up to the plate and be a man and do this on my own."
Junior is still immature enough to put a poker table where the dining table should be, but he is mature enough to contemplate his own legacy, even if he's not sure what it will be.
"You think I'm gonna get in the Hall of Fame?" he blurts, breaking the silence.........
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