Dale Earnhardt Jr. #8 with Dale Earnhardt Inc and Dale Earnhardt #3 with Richard Childress Racing are in action during The Winston, part of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series at Lowes Motor Speedway. (Photo: Craig Jones /Allsport)

But far from hurting the car, it actually seemed to help it. “We had stumbled across something in our practices that week by accident that worked really well in the last 10 laps — the 10-lap deal at the end,” said Earnhardt Jr. “The new tires we kept coming in and getting every two laps - every time the caution came out-were helping a lot, too. We learned something and applied that to those last 10 laps and smoked 'em.”

Dale Jarrett led the final segment, but a caution came out with eight laps to go, and once the track went green, four fresh Goodyear allowed Earnhardt Jr. to easily blow by Jarrett and hold on to win $516,410 in front of 150,000 delirious Earnhardt fans. Finishing third was Earnhardt Sr., followed by Jerry Nadeau and Jeff Burton.

But what the race-winner remembered most was what happened afterwards. “That win here in the All-Star race was, and still is, the favorite moment of my career — being in victory lane with my Dad,” said Earnhardt Jr. “The wins that I had before, he would come in and shake everybody's hand and take off. That was the only victory lane that he stood in the entire time-he was there for the whole half-hour, 45 minutes we were there, even as the car was taken off for inspection he continued to stay.”

It was a true family moment. “He was talking to his brother, Danny, and the guys on the team,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “He was really enjoying not only the father-son relationship, but I think he was enjoying the fact that he had built a team that was the winner of the All-Star race.”

This was the Earnhardt family’s home track and making a strong showing here in front of friends and family. Earnhardt imparted that to his son early on and it stuck.

“That was a big, important race to him,” Earnhardt Jr. said of his late father. “It's the best of the best. There are no points, there is no reason to be conservative. There is no excuse for not having your A game for that race. It ain't, ‘Well, I took a fourth or a top-five because it was a great points day,’ or whatever. It's all out. There are no excuses and you come with your A game, you run hard and that's what you get in the end. That was your best that night. That was a race and a format that Dad really admired.”

2008 All-Star Highlights

“It meant the most to him,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It was right up there with winning the (Daytona) 500. I think winning it as a car owner was something he never really imagined, so that was pretty cool to see him enjoy that moment that night.”

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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