(Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
In football there is one winner and one loser on any given Sunday. The same goes for baseball, basketball, tennis and hockey: there will be one winner and one loser.
But in NASCAR whereas only one driver can be happy, it leaves 42 others very unhappy. That includes their legions of fans that are either going to party with their victorious driver or have another week of agony.
Fans are dedicated to their drivers; they will both defend their driver when needed and criticize them when the time calls for it. When their driver wins, they win, and enjoy all that goes with it. When their driver struggles, they struggle with them.
A fan goes through as much emotion as their driver throughout the course of the NASCAR season.
If you approach every fan at a race, every single one of them will give you a different story as to why they root for the driver they do. They’ll tell you about personal connections, about how cute their driver is, or maybe how they just enjoy the paint schemes or car makes.
Everyone has a story and they’re sticking to it.
On discussion boards, personal websites, and the comment sections of articles, fans love their drivers. Sometimes that love will be mocked by others that don’t understand why someone roots for the driver they do, or why they stick with them when things are going bad.
Not every driver is a winner. Some haven’t won in their careers and some have gone years between victories (Jamie McMurray, Casey Mears, Elliott Sadler and others) but fans stay with them. And nowhere is that more evident than with Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans.
Saturday and Sunday of last weekend at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway, fans lined every one of Earnhardt Jr.’s merchandise haulers by three and four rows deep. It ends all debate to me about Earnhardt Jr.’s popularity declining. Instead, it shows that even though he’s having one of his worst seasons, JR Nation isn’t losing faith.
Lacy has been a Dale Earnhardt Jr. fan for a short time, through a personal connection. “We were watching him leave DEI and for some reason I was smitten,” she says. “I think my dad had just died and I saw the sadness on his face and that made me feel for him.”
But Lacy knows, like fellow Earnhardt Jr. fan Diane Dale, that he isn’t likely to win very often. Instead experiencing more lows than highs, just like New Hampshire and Dover. She’s just taking it one race at a time. “When he loses I’m sad but I think ahead to the next race, but lately I feel like as a fan I suck and am letting him down.”
Diane became an Earnhardt Jr. fan because of his personality, “He’s honest and respectful and that means a lot to me.”
And how does Diane get through a difficult year from her struggling driver?
“I feel upset for him when he doesn’t have a good run or win,” she says. “He takes so much abuse from haters and bashers…When he has a bad race I just want to reach through the television and give him a hug and tell him it will be alright.”
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