Earnhardt-Gordon a strange NASCAR combo

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You don't have to know where a restrictor plate goes -- let's see, underneath? -- to know which big-time rivalry in recent years has helped make NASCAR go round. And round and round. But now that Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon are joined at the Hendrick Motorsports hip, what's going to become of those ferocious adversaries in the grandstands, those flag-waving foes roaming the infields? As one of my softball team buddies, Earnhardt-fan Don (who does know where the restrictor plate goes, right there in front), put it, "It's the country boy and the city slicker, like oil and water in a tub. We're just going to have to get used to it." Maybe easier said than done. For most of the past decade, the two have been the symbolic branches of old school and new school racin'. Earnhardt was a T-shirt-and-jeans Southern boy from solid stock car stock, the son of one of the sport's most popular and successful drivers. Gordon was a Californian, polished and media savvy, just the man to lead NASCAR into new markets and corporate boardrooms. It wasn't the two drivers who squared off against each other. It was their fans. They hated the other guys' guy. Understandably enough, the animosity began with Earnhardt's base. Junior Nation resented Gordon's spit-shine looks, the way the new-money NASCAR folks flocked to him, and, especially, all the winning. Earnhardt's fans are the largest contingent at every track, and when they jeer, you notice. The red-clad legions took pleasure in tying Gordon paraphernalia to their belts and dragging it around behind them. They pelted racetracks with beer cans when Gordon won. Gordon's fans called them the Redneck Army and taunted them with No. 24 championship gear. The irony is that the drivers got along just fine. Last year when Gordon won at Phoenix to tie Earnhardt Sr. in career wins, Gordon waved the legendary No. 3 flag out of his window as he did his victory lap, a tribute previously cleared with Junior. Even so, Gordon was given another beer-can shower. Earnhardt jumped to Gordon's defense, calling the move "classy" and admonishing the fans' display. It was a natural move for Junior to join Rick Hendrick's all-star operation, including four-time champion Gordon and two-time defending champ Jimmie Johnson. To more casual observers, though, it sure seemed like an odd coupling. Imagine Barry Bonds in a Dodgers cap. "I never liked Gordon, so to see these guys on the same team, it's a little hard," said Ed Cazares, a Junior (and Tony Stewart) fan from Baldwin Park, Calif. "But I don't think there was a better place for Dale to go." Neutral parties certainly understood the rationale. "From a career standpoint, it's a good move for (Earnhardt)," said Paul Gonzalez, a NASCAR fan who took time off from his job in Walnut, Calif. to go to the Daytona 500 this past weekend -- an anniversary present from his wife. "Potentially it produces a championship for him. "But those natural rivalries are good for the sport. People like that kind of drama. Now those waters have been muddied." That's for sure. Junior's fans seemed caught in-between, especially before the season began. I scoured several Internet message boards to take their pulse. A typical sampling: "It's still hard for me to believe he signed with Hendrick." "I wish he wasn't with those guys, but he wasn't going to get it done at DEI." "I'm so sick of seeing Dale Jr. kiss Jeff Gordon's and Hendrick's butt." It certainly didn't take Earnhardt long to embrace his new environs. When Junior won the non-points Shootout at Daytona in his first try out of the Hendrick gate, a race in which he got a little push from Johnson in the late stages, he was clearly excited. "That was great, looking up in the mirror and seeing teammates ... pushing and helping you," Earnhardt said. "They've got fast cars just like we do, and if we work together, it will be harder to beat us and harder for us to lose." This super-group pairing of the sport's most popular driver (voted the honor five straight times) and its most successful driving duo is intriguing. But don't expect the rest of NASCAR's fans to welcome them like they're the Traveling Wilburys. Gonzalez, who has a couple of favorites -- none of them named Earnhardt, Gordon or Johnson -- said that Hendrick figures "to be dominating." He wondered -- maybe wishfully -- about the "dynamic between the top three personalities in the sport. It might not bode so well. If Junior ends up in the top position, you wonder how they'll all react." In any case, Junior fans are learning that victory heals all, best summed up by these two message board posts after his Shootout win: "Fellow Jr. fans, our time has come." "Whoooooooo!" And if Earnhardt can't win, there's always teammate Gordon to root for, too, eh, Junior Nation? "Uhhh, not quite," Cazares said. I know. Too soon. Wa-a-a-a-y too soon.(Contact Gregg Patton at gpatton@PE.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)