Third, take care of one member of that at-track family in particular.
"Everything they had planned for him, he'd call me and say, 'Well, they want me to do so-and-so, so I told them you are doing it, too,' "
Matt Kenseth said. "And I was like, 'OK, bud, whatever you say.' "
Kenseth explained it on Friday night as he was standing alongside his own retro paint scheme, a black and gold livery that harked back to 2000, the same season as Earnhardt's throwback ride. Earnhardt had arranged for a photo shoot with their two teams. They came in together that season, competed for Rookie of the Year (Kenseth won that), just as they had competed for Xfinity (then Busch) Series titles the two seasons prior (Earnhardt won those). Back then, they shared magazine covers as the futures of the sport. On Sunday, they both rode out together, Earnhardt by choice, Kenseth's hand forced by business circumstances.
On Sunday morning, Earnhardt's car was placed in an area separate from the other cars in the race field. He insisted that Kenseth's car be there, too. When NASCAR said they wanted Earnhardt to run a pace lap by himself, away from the rest of the grid, he also tried to include Kenseth in that.
"We went through it all together," Earnhardt explained of Kenseth, who won more races (39 to 26) and earned the one goal that always eluded his more famous friend. He said it while hiding in plain sight, having ducked into the very crowd clamoring to find him, sporting a face-splitting grin as he watched his pal pose with his team for photographers.
"Matt's had a Hall of Fame career," Earnhardt said. "He deserved the right sendoff, too. His whole crew does."
