Earnhardt family dynamics now a private matter

One good thing about all that has happened with the Earnhardts over the past six weeks is that pretty soon their family affairs largely won’t be any of our business.

Since mid-December, the relationship Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his sister Kelley Elledge have with their stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt, has been an undeniable part of NASCAR’s top story.

Make no mistake, Earnhardt Jr. will leave Dale Earnhardt Inc. at season’s end because, as he put it this week, he and his stepmother “don’t see eye to eye.”

Earnhardt Jr. and his sister, the person the 32-year-old driver trusts more than anyone else in his life, have genuine differences with their stepmother over the way she has been running DEI since Dale Earnhardt’s death.

They’re not alone. You don’t have to talk to too many people in the sport to find some who question whether important decisions about how resources are allocated have been made in a timely and effective manner on Teresa’s watch at DEI.

I wish I could tell you how Teresa Earnhardt responds to that criticism. Like every other reporter on the NASCAR beat, I’ve asked many times to talk to DEI’s team owner about how the business of DEI is conducted.

So far, none of us have been granted that opportunity.

One reason, perhaps, is that Teresa knows that DEI business and Earnhardt family business have been hopelessly entwined, and that it would be as long as they were in the NASCAR business together.

When Earnhardt Jr. said he would have to have 51 percent ownership in DEI in order to sign another contract to drive there, he was saying he had realized that as long as Teresa ran the company that no decision, right or wrong, would be made based on whether it was the right thing to do from the racing standpoint.

The family issues tinted everything, and always would.

If you listen carefully, Earnhardt Jr. never has said he couldn’t win at DEI. He felt that he couldn’t win at DEI as long as he was working for Teresa.

Earnhardt Jr. and Elledge are smart, and they knew that while Earnhardt Jr. enjoyed status as the sport’s most marketable driver they were in a unique position to deal from strength in seeking a new team.

When Earnhardt Jr. announced May 10 that he would leave DEI, some people declared that company all but dead. But since then, Martin Truex Jr. has won a race and DEI’s prospects are decidedly looking up.

If Earnhardt Jr.’s departure provides motivation for Teresa Earnhardt to make the kind of improvements that some think DEI has needed all along, it could be considered ironic. But, given what we know about the family situation, it certainly wouldn’t be surprising, would it?

Meanwhile, Elledge said the family spent some nice time together recently celebrating Taylor Nicole Earnhardt’s graduation from high school.

That’s important stuff, too. But more and more, it’s not something race fans ought to be concerned about.