You just knew there would be a curveball coming. But unlike major leaguers, even when you know the pitch, you can’t always make contact.

The Gibbs scenario seemed to be shaping up nicely for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to join his buddies Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin in top-notch equipment. No Budweiser? That’s a shame, but VISA will pony up.

The Childress angle was the most logical, of course. Drive for the team his father won six championships with and made famous. Follow in Daddy’s footsteps driving for Daddy’s best friend. Problem was, Richard Childress was conspicuously quiet during the whole free agent period, never expressing too much interest.

Ginn Racing? A novel idea, but too much of a wild card to score the sport’s biggest star at this point in it’s development.

And finally Hendrick. A leader in the clubhouse early, team owner Rich Hendrick had essentially taken his name out of the hat on Memorial Day weekend, saying "the inn is full" at Hendrick Motorsports. There goes that angle, right? Case closed.

On the contrary, Hendrick’s quote and the deterioration of a Hendrick-Kyle Busch relationship made for the perfect smokescreen for which to get this deal done.

So it was a bit of a surprise when word leaked yesterday of Earnhardt’s intent to drive for the sport’s most dominant organization; an organization Junior’s vast fan base has viewed as the New York Yankees to their Boston Red Sox. But it was with a sense of relief and optimism that Earnhardt and Hendrick addressed a throng of media at Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports shop.

"I feel like there’s a big weight lifted off my shoulders," Earnhardt said. "There’s still a lot of things to figure out, a lot of things to discuss with the sponsors. There’s a lot of things I have going on and Rick has going on and we have to figure a way to mesh it all together.

"I do feel a big relief and a lot of excitement, you know. And I know that Rick is going to do everything he can for me and that’s a great feeling, to have someone that’s going to support you like that."

So the 32-year old Earnhardt will drive a Hendrick Motorsports car for the next five years — in the prime of his career and in the best equipment he’s ever wheeled — starting in 2008. Neither expects a change to be made until then, either.

"I still have to concentrate and focus on driving the red No. 8 car as hard as I can do that throughout the rest of the year. I owe that to my guys."

What’s not yet clear is what the new Junior-mobile will look like. Will it be the No. 5? The 25, which had Budweiser ties in the mid- to late- ‘90s? Or could a deal be put together to bring over the No. 8 from DEI?

"I’d like the No. 8, but we’ll have to talk to Teresa (Earnhardt) about that." Earnhardt quipped.

Hendrick, as well, seemed optimistic to the thought of swapping the numbers with DEI. "If they wanted to talk about that, sure we’d be open to that."

And sponsorship? Well, that seems a murkier issue than the car number.

"We have several sponsors on our cars that are multi-year deals and our first responsibility is to those people," Hendrick said. "We couldn’t really talk to them (the sponsors) because as soon as we start talking to them, the conversations get out and you folks (the media) are going to have it the next day. So we had to wait until we had got deal done (Earhardt’s contract) then we’ll look at what their commitments are and what our commitments are and make it all mesh"

And if there is any concern on Hendrick’s part that there are too many princes in the kingdom — his lineup now boasts defending Cup champ Jimmie Johnson, four-time champion Jeff Gordon and the sport’s most popular figure in Earnhardt — the opportunity for further long-term success seems to outweigh them.

"They’re going to race each other. We’ve seen it with our cars this year. When you have multi-car teams, my job is to get the best talent out there. He’s going to have to beat those guys anyway and they’re going to have to (try to) beat him anyway, no matter if he’s with our team or somebody else."

On Earnhardt’s thoughts of teaming with two drivers — Gordon and Johnson — that many of his fans view as ‘the enemies’?
 
" We’ve all been been pretty good friends, so I’m looking forward to it. Those guys seem really excited about it and we’ve all talked about it and we’re pretty pumped up about us being teammates next year."

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