Junior happy to buy own pizza, but fans won't let him
Dale Earnhardt Jr. would like to pay for his pizza at "Pie-In-The-Sky" in Mooresville, N.C. NASCAR fans make sure that's not going to happen anytime soon, writes David Newton.
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- In a hallway just outside his small, downtown Mooresville restaurant, Tim Whitener was catching his breath after the lunch-hour rush.
He was wearing an apron sprinkled with flour and short khaki pants even though the outside temperature barely topped 40 degrees.
"Nobody ever said I had common sense," Whitener said with a laugh.
Few outside the city limits knew of this quaint little pizzeria known as "Pie-In-The-Sky" until four years ago when it was mentioned in the second chapter of "Driver #8, Dale Earnhardt, Jr."
Now people from California to Massachusetts send money to the Main Street restaurant with instructions to buy Earnhardt a pizza or sub.
Such is the star power of NASCAR's most popular driver.
"Every time I go in there somebody has sent in $10 to buy me a pizza," said Earnhardt, who grew up in Mooresville. "It's like a different fan every time. I try to pay, but they won't let me, so I just slide the money under my plate."
Earnhardt last dropped in on Whitener the day before leaving for the Nextel Cup banquet in New York City. He ordered his regular: a small pepperoni pizza with a ham and pastrami sub.
This one was on a couple from New Jersey.
"It came to more than $10, but as much as he's done for my business, I couldn't begin to be even with him," Whitener said.
Jade Gurss, who co-wrote "Driver #8," said Whitener's place is one of the few that Earnhardt can go without attracting a large crowd.
"In Mooresville, it's pretty low-key and cool," he said. "Most of the locals have seen him since he was a child. Sometimes he'll sign an autograph, but mostly people don't bother him.
"It's a much different story when we are in a race market. He usually arrives on Thursdays and never leaves the track until Sunday, even after the race because he's such a target."
Whitener can't remember a time anybody at his restaurant directly asked the son of seven-time Winston Cup champion Dale Earnhardt for an autograph.
"The closest I can remember is this one girl really wanted something for a friend of hers," he said. "I told her to give me what she wanted signed and when he checked out I would try to get it.
"He signed it without any problem, but most people respect his privacy here."
That doesn't mean there isn't interest. Whitener said one woman was so excited to see her favorite driver that she stared at him the entire time. He said a lot of people -- usually women -- ask where Earnhardt sits.
"They want to sit in that seat," Whitener said. "I kind of jokingly have said I might bring some of the old chairs I've got and sell them off and say Junior sat in them.
"I probably could make enough to remodel the restaurant."
Whitener has been in business for 20 years. He figures Earnhardt has been coming in for at least 15, although the visits have dropped from almost weekly to six or seven times a year -- plus deliveries to his house or the shop -- since Earnhardt's popularity exploded.
"When he first started coming in, I didn't know who he was," Whitener said. "He doesn't have an entourage that follows him around. When he was here last he sat right up at the bar."
Earnhardt, with a young lady friend, sat under a picture of two monks with the words, "Commend a wedded life, but keep thyself a bachelor."
"I think he enjoys being single," Whitener said.
The only picture of Earnhardt on display is a print of a victory celebration Earnhardt had delivered in June when the restaurant celebrated its 20th anniversary. It was signed, "Happy 20th. A satisfied customer. Dale Jr. #8."
The fact that most of the decor is the same red as Earnhardt's No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet is merely coincidence.
"I went to Davidson," Whitener said. "Those are my school colors."
Whitener isn't really a race fan. He's never been to a Nextel Cup race.
But he gets plenty of race traffic from fans traveling to one of the two Cup events in Charlotte or to visit Dale Earnhardt Inc. a few miles away off Highway 3.
"On race week we'll probably do an extra two or three hundred people," Whitener said. "It not like it makes our business burst at the seams, but we do get people from California that we normally wouldn't.
"I don't think many people come to Mooresville just to eat the pizza."
David Newton covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at dnewtonespn@aol.com.
