By Brian Ekberg
Design by Collin Oguro

Two Juniors Talk

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr. talk NASCAR 06 in this exclusive interview.

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It was hot in Chicago. The kind of hot that makes you wish your skin secreted sunblock. The kind of hot that would make you wish for male-pattern baldness if only to cool your head off. The sun was high and bright against a blue sky, but it was darting in and among some light cloud cover over Joliet, Illinois, home of the Chicagoland Speedway, which was hosting the weekend's USG Sheetrock 400. This was the 18th race on the 2005 NASCAR Nextel Cup event calendar, and there was also going to be a race on Saturday from the Busch series, the USG Durock 300. Though the Busch series is typically viewed as merely a support series to the main Nextel Cup schedule, there was a buzz about Saturday's Busch race, if only because so many of the regular Nextel Cup drivers would be participating as a warm-up to the big race on Sunday.

Even though it was Friday afternoon, two full days before the big race, RVs and cars already piled up in the infield; in a way the event was reminiscent of the sort of weeklong tailgate parties that spontaneously erupt on college campuses during the week of a big game. There were folks grilling steaks or hot dogs outside their campers; race fans standing on the roofs of their RVs, slowly turning circles with binoculars in hand as they followed Mark Martin or Tony Stewart's practice laps around the track; and people lining up to take their turn at the public showers offered on the infield. In a way, everyone is family at a NASCAR event--a big, raucous, and slightly sunburned family.

NASCAR prides itself on giving fans up close and personal access to the action.

One of the things that sets NASCAR apart from the snootier forms of motorsport (we're looking at you, Formula One) is the incredible amount of access that the public has to drivers, pit crews, and even the cars themselves. It wasn't an uncommon sight to see world-renowned talents like Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin walking through the garage areas, patiently signing autographs, or posing for photographs for a throng of fans that trailed behind them. It's as if the drivers--and by extension, the sport itself--recognizes the importance of the viewing public and does its best to make itself and its stars as accessible as possible to those who, at least partially, pay the bills. With the incredible explosion in popularity of the sport over the past half decade or so, this type of all-access atmosphere has been necessarily toned down a bit to allow the teams and drivers the ability to move relatively freely. Still, the average NASCAR fan in Chicago on Sunday had a much better chance of grabbing an autograph from last year's NASCAR champ Kurt Busch than a fan at Sunday's British Grand Prix had of obtaining a Michael Schumacher signature.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his teammate Martin Truex Jr. get a little pre-race action in with EA Sports' upcoming NASCAR game.

Of course, access in NASCAR is a two-way street. For fans, it means being close to the drivers they adore; for the drivers, it might mean helicopter rides into and out of the stadium (thus avoiding the choking traffic that surrounds every NASCAR venue on race weekends). For teammates Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Martin Truex Jr., access meant an early look at NASCAR 06 (an updated preview of which you can find here). It's easy to see that both Juniors are big gamers, and their ribbing of each other during an impromptu race revealed both an easy friendship and a good-natured rivalry that manifests itself mostly off the racetrack. In fact, both drivers can at least partially credit one great finish to their love of video games, which was a 2004 Busch series race at Talladega that saw Truex and Earnhardt finish 1-2 after choosing a racing line based on their gaming experience at a virtual Talladega.

"We actually worked together pretty much throughout the day," said Truex, recalling the story. "Everybody was running on the bottom end of the track and [Dale Jr. and I] like to run on the high side on the games we play at Talladega; so he came on the radio and I knew like that [what to do]..."

Truex and Earnhardt aren't just friends off the track; they're partners of a sort on race day, as both drivers (along with Michael Waltrip) race for Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI). Being teammates means sharing lots of information on race setups, car performance, and track conditions while off the track. But how closely does that relationship matter with five laps left in the race, when both teammates are pushing hard for a race win?

"I think it depends a lot on personality," said Earnhardt. "If I'm racing against Martin, me and him are friends, so we treat each other with a lot of respect and we're going to want to help each other."

Which isn't exactly what 2004 champ Kurt Busch had to say on the matter, at least when it comes to racing in the game. "When you get the last set of tires for the race, there's no more teammates," said Busch. "If you come off pit road and your teammate's right in front of you, he's going to make it tough for you to pass him."