Teresa Earnhardt steps into view

The DEI CEO mingled with her employees — and the media.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (AP) — High above the showroom floor, Teresa Earnhardt surveyed her employees as they hurriedly finished setting up for a reception.

When everything was finally in place and her media guests had been seated, the owner of Dale Earnhardt Inc. gracefully made her way to the front of the crowd to deliver a brief welcoming address. Then, the woman who has spent the past seven years shunning the press, stepped off the stage and worked the room.

Although she disappeared before the formal presentation of DEI’s season goals, her effort didn’t go unnoticed. It was a huge step for Earnhardt, who has stayed out of the spotlight since husband Dale Earnhardt was killed in the 2001 Daytona 500.

“Teresa’s been dedicated and devoted to the racing organization,” Max Siegel, the president of DEI’s global operations, said Wednesday at the season-preview luncheon. “There has been some miscommunication that’s been out there, and we’ve tried to surround her with a management team that can give her some comfort that things are being addressed and the right information is being disseminated and we are moving forward.”

The perception has long been that Earnhardt is an absentee owner who cared little about the race team and focused more on preserving the legacy of her late husband. It didn’t help when the once-mighty organization hit a competition slump, and a personality conflict between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his stepmother caused friction in their negotiations on a contract extension.

When Earnhardt Jr. grew weary of feeling underappreciated, and became convinced DEI could not be competitive with his stepmother in charge, he decided to leave the company at the end of last season. The bulk of his enormous fan base turned on Teresa Earnhardt, classifying her as the wicked stepmother who was well on her way to running DEI into the ground.

But she’s taken numerous steps — some large, such as merging with Richard Childress Racing on an engine program and acquiring Ginn Racing to build a four-car team, and others as small as simply speaking publicly — to prove that DEI is dedicated to moving forward and winning its first Sprint Cup title.

Surprised to learn Teresa Earnhardt had mingled with the media, Earnhardt Jr. said putting herself out front is good for the company.

“Max is a great face for the business, and if it’s him, it’s him. She doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to,” Earnhardt Jr. said later Wednesday at Hendrick Motorsports, his new race team. “It’s up to her what she wants to do. If she wants to let Max handle it, then that’s who we should all respect as the leader of the company.

“But it would help, I think, the morale of the guys around there for her to plug in more into what’s going on, so when she does come up to you and make you a comment, you believe it’s sincere and you don’t think that’s just her way of putting in her two cents every six months.”