DEI Not a Museum
Tony Stewart said last year that without Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dale Earnhardt Inc. is just a museum.
Well, after last week’s media trip to Dale Earnhardt Inc., I might have to disagree with Stewart.
With the absence of a majority of the memorabilia, and the 21 trophies that Earnhardt Jr. and Michael Waltrip combined earned with the team it’s hard to call DEI a museum.
No offense to Martin Truex Jr., Paul Menard and Mark Martin, but without a bunch of Junior's No. 8 items on display I would expect visitors to go down big time at DEI.
Although, DEI often changes out a couple displays the showroom there’s not that much to see. Unless want to see the clothes Earnhardt wore in the movie “Dale” or see the current waste of space display dedicated to the tires in NASCAR I would save yourself the trip. That's unless some changes are made.
There are a couple things to see, I guess, like Martin Truex Jr.’s championship Busch car, a cabinet with some of Earnhardt Sr’s trophies and memorabilia, and Sr’s past driver’s suits on the wall.
The best part of the shop is the center part of the building with a bunch of previous cars, including Junior's, on display, and even that’s not that great because they have it glassed off like the cars were in a zoo. Since the media visit was held in this area the cars were removed. But there was no reason to remove Junior’s presence from the showroom, as the media event was not held in this area. In fact, it was still open to the public. In my opinion, if Dale Jr’s memorabilia does return to the showroom part it will be due to the publicity it received.
My suggestion for the future for the DEI glass car room would be to rope off a straight walkway down the middle with the cars lined up on both sides so the fans could get closer to take pictures.
Now that the Cup cars are in the old Ginn Racing shop, let's hope that opens the doors for an actual museum, or as they call it showroom, at DEI to showcase everything the team has accomplished.
For now, if you want to visit a real Dale Earnhardt museum travel the extra hour up to Richard Childress Racing in Welcome, North Carolina.