In Dale Jr.’s press conference today at 11:00 a.m. EST, it was made official that Jr. will be driving for Rick Hendrick, making Hendrick the George Stienbrenner of NASCAR. It was a farily straight forward press conference, “we love this relationship”, “we look forward to working with each other…”, yada, yada, yada. The real question is now going to be sponsorships and numbers.

It’s true that Budweiser has a history with both Hendrick as well as the number 25, but as mentioned today, Hendrick has multi-year contracts with its current sponsors, and that may hinder Budweisers ability to jump right in. Both Rick and Dale seemed pretty comfortable up there, but you can just imagine a majority of Dale Jr.’s fans blowing smoke out of their ears. Dale Jr., Rick Hendrick and a Hendrick Motorsports backdrop behind them. One reporter from the Charlotte Observer made the best analogy, (parapharsed…)

“…this is like Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant’s son going to play football for Auburn.”

I look forward to seeing how all of this plays out. I’ll tell you one thing, it will definately be interesting.