Dale Earnhardt Jr. is no longer with the company and has left the building

I had no intention of writing anything for the Observer about thiswhole business about there not being any Dale Earnhardt Jr. memorabiliawhen the NASCAR Sprint Media Tour sponsored by Lowe's Motor Speedwaywent to visit Dale Earnhardt Inc. last week.

When the whole thing came up, my reaction was, "Well, duh."

Now I see a wire story about this overblown nothingness has found itsway to the pages of thatsracin.com. So I guess I will say somethingabout it after all.

Well, duh.

In case you guys missed it, Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn't work at DEI anymore. There is no more Budweiser No. 8 car. Budweiser is sponsoring another car, the No. 9 Dodges driven by Kasey Kahne, and Earnhardt Jr.has a new employer, Hendrick Motorsports; a new car number, No. 88, and new sponsors in AMP Energy Drink and the National Guard.

Honestly. All of that has been in the paper and everything.

Does anybody really, honestly, expect DEI to build its displays of the history of its team around a guy who took a powder and headed down thehighway?

When the 250 or so people on the media tour rolled into DEI, the good folks there served us lunch. To do that, they set up dozens of tables on the floor of the main showroom in the public area of the DEI headquarters. They also set up a stage for DEI's principle figures to stand on and another riser for television cameras to roost during theprogram.

To do all of that, they had to take out a bunch of cars that are left on display to show the team's history. DEI president Max Siegel told Jenna Fryer of The Associated Press that among them were several cars that Earnhardt Jr. had driven in Busch and Cup competition for DEI.

It doesn't really matter to me if those cars were there or not. I do know that if we'd rolled in there and walked past a half-dozen display cases full of memorabilia featuring Earnhardt Jr., there would have been those criticizing DEI for continuing to try to make hay off a driver who's no longer there.

Some people actually were surprised there was no Earnhardt Jr. souvenirs or memorabilia for sale in the gift shop. Good grief, folks, a bus load of lawyers racked up the billable hours determining every aspect of who could sell what as DEI, Earnhardt Jr. and the various sponsors all parted ways.

DEI no longer has rights to sell Earnhardt Jr.'s stuff and Budweiser doesn't want people selling No. 8 shirts and hats when it's paying to put its colors on the No. 9 now.

That's ridiculous.

The displays around DEI feature a lot of stuff relating to the man who founded the place, Dale Earnahrdt Sr. One of the rallying points for the people who still work there is that they're still trying to sustain the legacy of a seven-time champion who helped build that company to the point where it could field Cup cars and, when the time came, be strong enough to keep going in the face of Earnhardt Jr.'s departure.

Earnhardt Jr. has turned a page. He's doing what he feels he has to do to have the best shot to win races and championships. DEI, meanwhile, is trying to go forward, too.

Mark Martin and Aric Almirola will share theNo. 8 Chevrolets this year with the U.S. Army as its sponsor.

It's a new chapter for DEI, too. Yes, there's probably a little bit of hurt reflected in the fact that some of the stuff Earnhardt Jr. accomplished at DEI isn't more prominently displayed right now.

You could argue that by not showing that off DEI isn't giving proper tribute to the people who're still there who helped Earnhardt Jr. accomplish that. At the same time, maybe some of those people who didn't leave when Earnhardt Jr. chose to are staying at DEI for the expressed purpose of making new history and ringing up new accomplishments.

Maybe they'd rather not, at least right now, be reminded of what for most everyone involved was an emotional parting ofthe ways. Yes, the Busch championships and 17 Cup victories, inclulding a Daytona 500, that Earnhardt Jr. racked up are part of the history ofDEI.

Absolutely that should be part of any retelling of the company's history. But isn't it possible to understand why, with all the wounds ofthat parting still so fresh, there might be a bit of pettiness involved in how the trophies are arrayed in the cases at DEI?

Well, duh.