ORLANDO, Fla. - Sometimes Dale Earnhardt Jr. laughs about it.

This whole "feud" with Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage was nothing more than another example of the power of Earnhardt's name. It's a power that confuses him, amuses him and makes him a little uncomfortable.

In January, Gossage's colleagues, including company president Bruton Smith, annoyed Earnhardt when they said drivers need to do more to help tracks sell tickets. Earnhardt said drivers do enough. Track promoters should do their job.

Sarcastic and biting, Gossage mocked Earnhardt for suggesting tracks shouldn't use his name to promote and suggesting price cuts begin not with the tracks, but with Earnhardt's merchandise.

Earnhardt watched the rest unfold. In less than a week Gossage announced, after speaking with Earnhardt's representatives, the two of them had buried the hatchet. It's not good business to rip the sport's most popular driver. Gossage even called Earnhardt "the best thing we've got."

"I figured that if he really wanted to or if Bruton or anyone wanted to, they could pick me apart in the press," Earnhardt said.

Gossage backed off. But in the end, they always back off.

Even without scores of wins (Earnhardt has 18 wins, three since 2004), even without a championship, his power has grown.

Once shy and hidden by his father's titanic shadow, Junior shows more every day how comfortable he is in his position and that, however reluctantly, it is his own.

Lately the patience with Earnhardt has waned ever so slightly. At age 34, he's even had to consider the possibility that he might never win a series title.

"If it doesn't happen, what's my life going to be like?" Earnhardt said. "Am I going to become an alcoholic, hide out in some (darn) town house and disappear or what? That's the way everybody makes it sound. You don't win a championship, life's over.

"I sit there and I think, it is important to me and it is my No. 1 goal. I will be sad to not have it happen. I will have to come to terms with that, and it ain't going to be, like, easy to do. But I do know at one time I just wanted to make enough to pay my bills. … I did better than I thought I was going to do."

He's coming to terms with all of it.

Super-shy superstar

Shy and quiet are two of the first words those who know Earnhardt Jr. well use to describe him.

Small for his age, he was picked on in school. It certainly didn't help to have the name Dale Earnhardt.

"It was very tough for us growing up because at the time we were in school when we were preteens or teenagers, our dad was either hated or loved," said Kelley Earnhardt, Dale's older sister, who manages his business dealings. "… People automatically thought we were stuck up or we were on a different playing field with them."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. made an impression on everyone he met, anyway.

"I think any of his former teachers would tell you he was very quiet, shy, introverted and never caused any problems in the classroom," said Lorraine Pope, who taught Earnhardt in an art class at Mooresville High School a few miles from Charlotte, N.C., where Earnhardt spent part of his high school years. He also attended Oak Ridge Military Academy in Virginia.

Pope still writes to him every year.

His teachers didn't see a budding NASCAR star.

"Well, I never thought he would've done what he's doing now, how successful he's become," said Al Jones, who also taught at Mooresville.

Earnhardt never thought so, either.

Quick rise

Leadership didn't come to Earnhardt when he entered NASCAR. His father was still alive, still powerful in the sport. And when Earnhardt started racing full time in the Busch Series in 1998, his career came with terrifying expectations.

"I was (expletive) scared to death," Earnhardt said. "I was confident on the outside, but Tony (Eury) Senior was my crew chief and Tony (Eury) Junior was my car chief. Tony Senior is a mean (son of a gun) if (stuff) don't go right. Mean as (heck). … I was just scared to death driving that car for the first couple months."

Wins came almost right away. He won the pole in Bristol in the sixth race of the 1998 season, and then won at Texas the next week.

"I went from making a couple hundred dollars a week to over a million dollars a year," Earnhardt said. "My dad basically said here, you do what you want with this money. … I just put it all in the bank and sat on it."

Not all of it.

At the time he lived in a rented double-wide trailer from his dad across the street from Dale Earnhardt Inc. He lived with his best friend, Josh Snider.

One day Snider came home to find the biggest TV he'd ever seen with a full entertainment center installed.

"I don't know how the whole purchase went down; I just know we had it," Snider said. "I thought the old boy's starting to make it."

More than make it, suddenly, everybody was interested in him.

"I liked it then 'cause we were having fun," Earnhardt said. "We had our old blue AC Delco car. We were winning a lot of races, and always fast. When the Cup guys came around with us we could mix it right up with them. There were a lot of great compliments from all the Cup drivers. Daddy was real proud, Tony Jr. and them were happy. … I was enjoying the popularity."

He won the Busch Series titles in 1998 and 1999, and began Cup racing full time in 2000.

When a wreck during the 2001 Daytona 500 claimed his father's life, Junior was all fans had left.

"They just want me to win so bad," Earnhardt Jr. said.

He did his best.

His first win that season came at Daytona in July. He won twice more that season and finished the series in eighth place - his first of four career top-10 series finishes.

"He could've gone off the deep end and everybody would've understood," Snider said. "Instead he went to work the next day. He hit a grand slam when everybody was expecting him - when everybody would have understood - if he struck out."

Powerful popularity

Quickly, the attention got crazy. That has never stopped.

He's been asked to sign faces and babies. He's had marriage proposals.

Kelley Earnhardt remembers getting a call from a very embarrassed woman at a wedding shop one day.

"Somebody took a down payment on a wedding dress and said they were getting married to Dale Earnhardt Jr.," Kelley Earnhardt said. "They called to ask if we knew them."

Last year in Pocono, he and his troupe rented a house, and fans found it.

One showed up at the door and knocked. Earnhardt public relations representative Mike Davis answered the door.

"My friends didn't think it was Dale Earnhardt Jr. in there, but we had a bet," the fan said. "Can you have him sign this so we can win this bet?"

Davis told the fan to go home.

Despite the occasional lunatic, Earnhardt's empire depends on his fans' passionate loyalty. And it's not all about his dad, either. For six straight years, Earnhardt has been voted NASCAR's most popular driver.

"Dale fans are really, really good," Davis said. "Good, loyal. I mean, how could you ever say anything bad about them? They spend a lot of money. There's nothing he can do wrong. They support him no matter what."

NASCAR, ever conscious of fans' opinions, pays attention.

League of his own

"He's treated just like every other competitor out there," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said. "That's NASCAR's responsibility to make sure that all teams and all drivers are treated the same and are treated fairly."

Still, drivers often joke about the freedom, or perceived freedom, Earnhardt has in being able to speak his mind when they can't.

During one race last year Earnhardt was penalized, then the penalty was removed shortly thereafter.

"How does that work?" one driver asked over his radio.

Favoritism, conspiracy theorists thought. Earnhardt's success increases fan interest and television ratings.

During the Daytona 500, some thought Earnhardt should have been penalized for aggressive driving after causing a multicar wreck that took out some of NASCAR's best drivers.

That was a rare time when public opinion swayed away from Earnhardt. He found it interesting.

To the sport, he will always mean more than just who he is. He will always represent his family and the father the racing world adored and abhorred, sometimes at once.

But he won't let the expectations and hopes of his followers - of NASCAR, which would benefit from his success - crush him.

"It's hard for people to realize how big the whole thing is," Earnhardt said. "How big somebody's whole life is. Everybody focuses on the now and focuses on every little step.

"… I made more out of this, had more happen to me, met people, went places, won the Daytona 500. … Winning the championship is important for me. But I think I still could be productive and have a good, happy life without it."

He'll accept his role. He'll take on the responsibility of being a voice for the sport. And if Earnhardt doesn't win the championship, he won't feel like a failure, even though others might see it differently.

Like he said, they just want him to win so badly.