Sleeping With the Enemy
I know, NASCAR, blah.
You think it’s a hillbilly sport, or not a sport at all: it’s just pressing your right foot to the floor. But this recent news coming out of the Smokeless Set is really pretty incredible. Hear me out.
All evidence is pointing to Dale Earnhardt Jr. heading to Hendrick Motorsports in 2008, leaving the company his deceased father started to join forces with the driver most reviled by his daddy’s legion (and I mean legion) of remaining fans: Jeff Gordon. Gordon teammates with an Earnhardt? Why, that’s as un-American as a hotel heiress not being able to buy her way out of a couple weeks in prison!
I’m trying to think of other-sports equivalents. Imagine if Jason Varitek and Alex Rodriguez suddenly became teammates, and had to pretend their famous ’04 fistfight never happened. Or say Dino Cicarelli got the locker next to Claude Lemieux’s (after a playoff series in which Lemieux’s dirty play rearranged Kris Draper’s face, Cicarelli famously intoned, "I can’t believe I shook that friggin’ guy’s hand"). Or if Kris Jenkins had to rely on Warren Sapp on a down-by-down basis (Jenkins admits he started drinking heavily after watching the hated Sapp celebrate on Carolina’s home field).
I mean, no, I guess Dale Jr. and Gordon have never personally expressed hatred of one another, but just take a look at the folks who like to throw things on the track after the No. 24 wins a race, and dollars-to-donuts they’re wearing a lot of red No. 8 gear. At whom will Little-E fans direct their venom now?
by Michael Cash – thespread.com – Email Us
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