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What: Driver #8

Author: Dale Earnhardt Jr. with Jade Gurss

Publisher: Warner Books, Inc.

Price: $23.95

So many books have been written the last few years on NASCAR that it has been difficult to keep up with them. Much of it has been written in the aftermath of Dale Earnhardt’s death in the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

The charm of this book is that it is different. It is more a journal of a young man’s rookie year in NASCAR’s premier series, Winston Cup, chronicling the stress Dale Earnhardt Jr. faced, on and off the track, in competition with his famous father, who was also his boss, through a thrilling and sometimes tedious season of 36 races.

It was a year when his red No. 8 became as visible as his dad’s black No. 3.

Amusing is his version of how NASCAR officials became nervous when a Rolling Stones writer--an African American--spent a week with Dale Jr. in mid-season, telling him “to be careful to avoid a ‘Rocker incident,” referring to the Atlanta pitcher’s Sports Illustrated debacle.

Only seven pages, an epilogue, discuss his feelings following the fatal accident and the frantic days and months that followed.

Those seven pages are worth the price of the book.