Where will Dale Earnhardt, Jr. drive next?

NASCAR superstar driver Dale Earnhardt, Jr. recently announced he’ll be leaving DEI, the company his father founded, at the end of this season, essentially making him a free agent.

Earnhardt’s main sponsor Budweiser has said they’d stick with him, although VISA has said they’re interested. But, the big question on everyone’s mind is which company Junior will drive for in 2008.

Let’s take a look at some possible contenders…

Richard Childress Racing: RCR seems like it would be a good fit for Junior. The team, which includes Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick, and Jeff Burton, would seemingly welcome such a big attention-getter. They have the resources to get Junior a championship. And they were the team Earnhardt Sr. raced for and still own the rights to the #3. Intimidator fans would love to see Junior in the #3, but Junior doesn’t feel the same way:

“With respect to my father, I don’t feel very comfortable about that. He made that number what it is. With respect to him, I believe it belongs to him, you know what I mean? I never say never, and I’ve told you guys before that I was interested in doing that later in my career, and I still feel like that. I still feel that way. If that’s something Richard is interested in, we can explore that, but that’s a long way down the road.”

Joe Gibbs Racing: JGR has Junior’s buddy Tony Stewart, JJ Yeley, and Denny Hamlin and also has the resources to provide championship contention for Earnhardt. They have an open spot currently, but have heavily invested in developmental driver Aric Almirola. Plus, Joe Gibbs owns the Redskins, which just so happens to be Junior’s favorite NFL team. However, Gibbs has said he has a problem with taking on an alcohol-related sponsor, so unless a new big money sponsor comes forward, this might not work out:

“I’m not sure if that would fit for us,” J.D. Gibbs said. “Even though we really appreciate what they’re doing and they’re a great group, that would be a hard deal for us to do.”

Hendrick Motorsports: Hendrick has been dominating the 2007 season with drivers Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, and Casey Mears. They seem to have figured out the Car of Tomorrow and have converted their shared team experience into wins. The only problem is that NASCAR only allows 4 racecars per team and Hendrick is full right now. Hendrick could consider dropping Mears for Junior, but that team seems to still be a work-in-progress. Perhaps they could give Earnhardt Kyle Busch’s car and team, which is top-notch, therby demoting Busch to the #25 car, but that would certainly rub Kyle the wrong way.

Ginn Racing: Ginn Racing is a smaller company, gaining momentum, that currently has three cars in NASCAR: Mark Martin/Regan Smith, Sterling Marlin, and Joe Nemecheck. Bobby Ginn has openly said he wants Earnhardt to drive for him, despite being an underdog in terms of racing wins:

“Mark was aware of how fast our cars were every week. Drivers know,” [General Manager Jay] Frye said. “[Earnhardt] is a smart guy. He knows what’s in the garage. He knows who the people are that we have here. He knows whether he’d be comfortable here or not. He wants to compete for wins every week and run for a championship. Have we done that? No, we haven’t. Do we think we can? Yes. Are we building to do that? Yes. Could he help us do that? Sure. But it might not be where he wants to come help, he wants to do it now. I don’t know. We haven’t talked. He may not want to talk to us. I don’t know.”

Other Possibilities: Junior has said he wants to continue driving a Chevrolet, and even if joining one of the Chevy teams doesn’t work, he can always form his own company and lease cars and engines from RCR. Building a race team from scratch, however, would be taking several steps back, as building a race team and crew from scratch would likely take several years.

Leaving Chevy Behind: Just because he has a preference for Chevy, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the best scenario for Junior will include that type of car. Toyota isn’t an option because he it is way behind in development for NASCAR. All the Dodge teams seem to have their big superstars already, like Kasey Kahne, for instance.

But what about Ford, which Earnhardt Sr. drove originally in his career? Roush-Fenway Racing already has too many drivers. They’ll need to drop one car just to get under the new 2008 four-car-per-team restriction, so they aren’t an option. The other prominent Ford team is Robert Yates Racing, which certainly has room for Junior after losing Dale Jarrett and Elliot Sadler in 2006. But they are currently in merger talks with DEI, essentially taking them out of the Dale Jr. equation.

No turning back: With only 2 wins in his last 84 races, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is right about having to move now to a company and a team that will put him into championship contention. Driving the #3 of his father isn’t really realistic for another two decades or so, as a tribute. That, and DEI, is all in the past. Its time to move on, no turnining back. But Junior will have his pick of teams in 2008, and a say as to what becomes of his NASCAR future. He knows he’ll need to investigate the details with any potential teams over the next several months in order to make the right choice:

“I need to go see and talk to these individuals. I need to go see shops, see resources, meet employees, talk with the drivers and see what the interest is in them having me as a teammate.”

And you can bet he will. It won’t be in the #08 car, but Junior will definitely be behind the wheel of something in 2008.

AND THEN THERE’S THIS: NASCAR should just cancel all their Saturday night races and move them to Sunday afternoon, where they belong. Everyone can see that the “primetime races” are just a lame publicity stunt. The Darlington race was rained out tonight and postponed until tomorrow, just after the same thing happened last week at Richmond.