ATLANTA - The opening of Fox's final NASCAR broadcast of 2003 featured Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. sitting at a desk inside the Hollywood Hotel.
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They were playful as they filled in for regular announcers Chris Myers and Jeff Hammond one week ago in California, making fun of their hairspray and cue cards. If fans didn't know better, they would have thought they were buddies.
Fans know better.
Behind the playful banter and smiles exists NASCAR's newest true rivalry.
It is not one manufactured by the media or the governing body's public relations machine. The tension simmers - and boils over periodically - a feud shaped not just by the pair's personalities but also events beyond either's control.
Away from the TelePrompTer and public relations cartels, Harvick and Earnhardt remain young drivers forever linked by the legacy of Dale Earnhardt. The tension, and rivalry that arose out of it, was created by Earnhardt's death on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
Like it or not, the burden will be carried by them for as long as they drive stock cars on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series.
EARNHARDT IS DRIVING in his famous father's shadow. Harvick is driving for the team - and in the ride - the seven-time series champion made famous. That dynamic often puts them on opposite sides of defending Earnhardt's heritage.
There have been no major on-track confrontations; the two have kept their rivalry largely out of the public view. However, it is one of the most tense that a business dominated by corporate images and market-share reports has to offer.
The occasional verbal jabs reveal the undercurrent of discontent between them and enhance the commonly held belief, according to fellow drivers and members of the NASCAR community, that Earnhardt should worry about his race team and Harvick should better appreciate what Earnhardt's father accomplished with his.
No, it's not Richard Petty and David Pearson wrecking 500 yards short of the finish line at the 1976 Daytona 500 or Bobby and Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough getting into a fistfight. They haven't been around enough to equal the longstanding feud between Geoffrey Bodine and the late Earnhardt. They don't have a scorching war of words and history of on-track collisions like Buckshot Jones and Randy LaJoie or Jimmy Spencer and Kurt Busch.
"I don't know if there's any good rivalries out there right now," said Bodine, who was once summoned to Daytona Beach, Fla., for a private meeting with NASCAR president Bill France Jr. as a result of his rivalry with Earnhardt. "There are arguments every now and then, but no real rivalries. To have a good rivalry, you have to have two drivers with different personalities."
Instead, Harvick's and Earnhardt's is a different, newer rivalry: neat, polished and specific.
HARVICK'S CONFRONTATIONS with his Richard Childress Racing teammates and his one-race suspension for rough driving, prompted Earnhardt to criticize him in February at Daytona International Speedway.
"I don't necessarily see eye to eye with every one of (Childress') drivers," Earnhardt said. "They ain't been there that long, and they might not be there much longer."
Earnhardt drives for the company his father founded, Dale Earnhardt Inc. The elder Earnhardt drove for Richard Childress Racing. The situation created a natural rivalry between the teams. But Earnhardt's son made the division seem personal.
"You've got Richard Childress over there busting his (tail) for all these years to get what he's got, and I don't think those guys appreciate what the man in this sport has done and the opportunity they have in his race cars," Earnhardt said in February.
"What I was upset with last year was how they worked against each other and didn't complement each other."
Earnhardt has since said too much was made out of that criticism. But much of what he said proved true.
Driver Jeff Green was fired byRichard Childress Racing in May after he complained of being knocked into the wall by Harvick at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway.
Last Sunday, Robbie Gordon, another Childress teammate, passed Harvick while racing to the flag stand at the start of a caution period, a move that violated a "gentlemen's agreement" among the drivers but no NASCAR rules. A day later, Harvick issued a six-paragraph statement condemning his teammate.
HARVICK IS STILL searching for his first victory of 2003, although he has been in the top 10 of the points standings for most of the season. He is currently ninth, with five top-10 finishes.
Earnhardt has won once and is third in the standings on the strength of 10 top-10 finishes.
"The most intense rivalries are when you have two different personalities - one guy who likes to make bump-and-run passes, one guy who doesn't," Bodine said.
Earnhardt and Harvick don't have such issues. In fact, the two have similar personalities and racing styles. Their problem is how they fit into the aftermath of Earnhardt's death.
"All of the guys here who were around Earnhardt knew just how competitive he was," said Danny Lawrence, the head engine builder for Childress. "Dale Jr. knows that's not his dad's old car anymore. And Kevin wants to win and do it his way. There are little head games going on."
Lawrence believes whatever tension there might be between Earnhardt and Harvick is a continuation of their grieving process.
"It hurt us all," Lawrence said of Earnhardt's fatal crash. "There was nothing good at what came down that day at Daytona. I think about Dale every day and how good we had it. Things are different now, but we're all still family."
Reach Don Coble at doncoble@bellsouth.net.
