July 19, 2010
By Matthew Pizzolato
Matthew Pizzolato
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The No. 3 Wrangler car that Dale Earnhardt Jr. drove to victory in the July 2nd Nationwide Daytona race is on display in the new NASCAR Hall of Fame. And right now, the plans are for it to be a one time deal.
The car was unveiled in the Hall of Fame on July 14th and will remain there on loan until September 19th, 2010, so fans that wish to see the car in its original condition will only have a few months to do so.
The reason the car is at the Hall of Fame for a limited time is because the car is the Nationwide version of the Car of Tomorrow and JR Motorsports needs the chassis for use in future races. Being a Nationwide team that is not fully sponsored, JR Motorsports can't afford to give away an entire chassis.
However, there are plans in place to salvage at least the body of the car.
"We'd like to try to cut it off, take the body off, hopefully in one piece and then hang that upside down in our shop at JR Motorsports," Kelley Earnhardt, the general manager and co-owner of JR Motorsports was quoted as saying in a Mark Aumann article on nascar.com "That way we'd have at least one part of it. We'd like to take the whole car [and just put it on display], but, you know, we're a Nationwide team and that's $150,000 sitting there that we can use somewhere else. As long as we have the body, I think we'll be in pretty good shape."
When considering all of the effort that went into putting the project together, not to mention the fact that Earnhardt Jr. drove the car to Victory Lane in such a fitting tribute to his father, should the car be cut up for parts after it's stint at Hall of Fame or should it remain there?
Most people, Earnhardt Jr. included, believed that anything less than a win with the Wrangler colors on the car just wouldn't be good enough.
"I was so worried that I wasn't going to win, because nothing but winning was good enough, for everybody in the world," Earnhardt was quoted as saying in an AP article on espn.com. "If you didn't win, what a waste of time."
And it wasn't as if the win was handed to him either. Earnhardt dominated the final 30 laps and successfully held off the field in the final restart of the race.
After such a fitting tribute to his father's induction into NASCAR's Hall of Fame, it would be shame for the car not to find a permanent home there. Another factor to consider is that Earnhardt stated after the race that it would be the final time he drives the No. 3 car.
The best way for this fairy tale story to end is for that blue and yellow Wrangler No. 3 car to take up residence in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Any other outcome would just be a waste of time.
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