Earnhardts not a happy family

NASCAR’s season hasn’t started yet, but observers already are buzzing about the prospect that the driver consistently voted Nextel Cup’s most popular, Dale Earnhardt Jr., might leave his late father’s namesake team next year.

Earnhardt is starting the final year of a three-year contract with Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI), owned by his stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt, widow of the legendary stock car driver.

The relationship between Junior, as he’s commonly called, and Teresa is widely regarded as chilly at best, and recent comments by both about Earnhardt’s contract talks indicated they remain sharply divided.

During a break Monday in preseason testing at Daytona International Speedway, Earnhardt said he had not spoken to his stepmother since she was quoted Dec. 14, questioning his resolve to remain a NASCAR competitor.

“Right now the ball’s in his court to decide on whether he wants to be a NASCAR driver or whether he wants to be a public personality,” she told the Wall Street Journal.

Earnhardt said he initially refrained from responding, but added, “I really didn’t appreciate it, whether she was taken out of context or not.

“I haven’t talked to Teresa about what she said. I figured if anything needed to be said, she’d call me up and say it.”

Teresa Earnhardt, who keeps a low profile and rarely grants interviews, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Her remarks stung Earnhardt, 32, in part because he’s coming off a season in which he earned widespread praise for a newfound tenacity and perseverance as a driver when he wasn’t having his best races.

That helped him qualify for the 10-driver Chase for the Cup, NASCAR’s late-season playoff races to determine the series champion.

Earnhardt, in turn, heaped praise on his Mooresville, N.C.-based DEI team led by crew chief and cousin Tony Eury Jr., saying the team handed him strong cars nearly every week.

Earnhardt finished fifth in the Chase and had one victory last year, at Richmond, Va. He has won 17 Cup races in his career.

His father, still revered by NASCAR fans, was a seven-time champion who, even though he drove for Richard Childress Racing, started DEI in the early 1980s. He and Teresa -- married in 1982 -- built it into a contending team, which she took over after Earnhardt was killed in a last-lap crash at the 2001 Daytona 500.

Despite the strained relations between the younger Earnhardt and his stepmother, some NASCAR observers said it was doubtful that Earnhardt would leave the family team. And Richie Gilmore, DEI’s motor-sports director, told reporters at Daytona on Monday it was likely that Earnhardt would sign a new contract with the team by May.

Earnhardt too said, “You know, I like driving the red Bud car with the number 8 on it. We’re working to get through the contract and finish up a new deal. I feel like we can get it done.”

But he also cautioned, “It’s going to be very difficult,” adding, “My relationship with the car owner is definitely going to factor into my decision to drive.”

That relationship “ain’t a bed of roses,” Earnhardt said. “Mine and Teresa’s relationship has always been very black and white, very strict and in your face....

“The relationship that we have today is the same relationship we had when I was 6 years old, when I moved into that house with Dad and her. It’s always been the same. It hasn’t gotten worse over the last couple years or last couple months.”

Regardless, Earnhardt said his devotion to driving was unwavering.

“I would like to drive as long as I can,” he said. “When I’m out of the car in the off-season, I miss it. I’m ready to go back to the track right the day after Christmas.”

The season opens Feb. 18 with the Daytona 500.

*

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

james.peltz@latimes.com