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Dale Earnhardt Jr. always has had the talent and the fan support, but now that he belongs to Hendrick Motorsports he probably also has some of the best resources that NASCAR has to offer.

Is this the creation of a three-headed monster? Are we looking at the birth of the New York Yankees of stock car racing?

 Not likely, let me explain why. 

For this season Little E, left Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, the team founded by his late father and joined four-time NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson (winner of the last two championships) and Casey Mears at Rick Hendrick’s team.  

He signed with the team that has won the last two NASCAR championships and a huge winning tradition.  A team that in the last 13 years has won 167 races and seven championships.  A team that will provide him with everything he needs to win, but won’t give him any preferential treatment just because of his popularity nor because he’s the latest top ace to sign with them.

 There’s no doubt that Earnhardt Jr. is a young-talented driver that has a lot of potential, however he will be the subject of tremendous amount of pressure as he tries to live up to the high expectations and may not win immediately. 

But even if he doesn’t triumph right away with his new team don’t expect Junior’s struggles to last for a long time either. This guy’s no longer a rookie, and he knows that he has to prove with victories that he’s made the right move.

Now with the right resources behind him Little E won’t have any excuses if he fails, so it will be interesting to see how he responds to the pressure of being a favorite and how he performs when he gets to tracks like Daytona and Talladega.

For everybody inside the team it probably makes perfect sense to have him there, but for all the other teams the move is nothing but trouble. After all, now this team not only has an owner that is one of the best at what he does, but three great drivers that are title contenders.

 Some fans probably even resent Junior for not joining another team. Some may even start rooting against Hendrick MotorSports with the same passion that MLB fans root against the Yankees. But don’t worry, thre’s one good reason why this team won’t be as dominant as Joe Torre’s Yankees once were: in NASCAR each pilot competes for himself, not for the team.

Remember that last year Johnson’s immediate follower in the Chase for the Cup was Gordon and they had a fierce battle going despite the fact that they were teammates. This season with three aces under his sleeve Hendrick should not expect any different, and neither should the fans.

After all, NASCAR isn’t a team sport. When the pilots are on the racetrack they  battle each other for the checkered flag and points because they know that at the end of the year only one of them can be crowned champion, and that will prevent Hendrick’s team from becoming the Yankees of NASCAR.