Dale Earnhardt Jr. walked briskly from his car to his team's hauler Friday after qualifying and, like the Pied Piper, led a herd of garage rats behind him -- some snapping pictures, others asking for autographs and virtually everyone yelling his name.

You might think this is routine for the rising star in this rising sport -- and for the most part it is. But what made this particular scene unique was that Junior was actually receiving all this attention after a successful day at the track, qualifying second.

	Dale Earnhardt Jr. is arguably NASCAR's most popular driver.

For most of this season, he has struggled, and yet the fans still follow. He sits in 16th place in the championship standings, more than 600 points behind leader Sterling Marlin, and still, the mob of autograph seekers and reporters mirror his every step. It doesn't matter if he tears up his car in a wreck or just plain can't get it to run fast, he's the most popular attraction at just about every venue NASCAR visits.

And it's all just as nerve-racking to the 27-year-old now as it was when it first began during his rookie season in 2000. The only difference now is he believes he should be winning more races and contending for championships. And he wonders if all this attention isn't part of the reason he has not been able to so. He also wonders if he'll ever become comfortable with the fact that the fans don't care if he ever does. They'll love him, anyway.

"If you walk up and down this garage and look behind everybody's pit you won't see too many people standing anywhere but behind our pit," the No. 8 Chevy pilot said. "There's 30, 40 people always around our garage stall. There's reporters, there's press, there's fans. We're just really kind of under a lot of pressure to perform. ... Sometimes, your brain just gets a little frayed out."

Junior says this pressure might have something to do with how his team has performed this season. After all, doing a job with so many excited onlookers within arm's reach takes tremendous concentration. And focus doesn't seem to be Junior's forte.

"It really puts a bind on your relationship with your team when you've got to kind of hide underneath something all day long just to be able to concentrate on the car," Junior said. "There's a place and a time for everything. I'm definitely not the best person to try to shut things out and [at] being able to focus on one thing. We go to all these appearances and all these people show up and I never get used to it.

"It's never like something you expect. You come into Food City and places like it -- I never get used to it. It's good, it's fun, the excitement is great, but sometimes it kind of makes you nervous. It makes me a little nervous sometimes because I never get used to it; I wonder whether I ever will.

"My Dad used to be able to walk through here. A lot of drivers can do that -- walk through here and [shut] everything out and not be bothered by it. Their focus seems to be able to stay 100 percent on the car. If I walk from the car to the bus and back, I've done forgot everything I just did because there are so many people hollering your name."

It's easy to confuse Junior's honesty as routine whining from a race car driver who is not doing as well as he thought he would. After all, there are thousands of race car drivers across the country -- from short track bandits with Winston Cup dreams and Winston Cup pilots with hopes of winning and contending for championships -- who would love to get the attention Junior does.

He's on billboards and in popular magazines and on MTV. He has risen above the notion that this sport is for rednecks from the south. He's got legions of fans everywhere. During a recent trip to Greece, I saw a man with a No. 8 hat at the Acropolis.

But that's just his point. Junior isn't just whining about the attention, he's uncomfortable receiving it when he doesn't believe he has earned it.

"I feel kind of so undeserving sometimes because we run like crap on the race track and we still get all this attention -- being the focal point of the sport and [supposed] to lead the sport into the new millennium, whatever," he said. "We can't do any of that if we can't run good on the race track.

"You just get so frustrated sometimes because you don't do what you want to do and what you think you can do. I feel like I can win five championships in a row if my car drives great every week; I think anybody can. I just want to win, I want to win championships, and nothing else really matters."

"I don't think it's possible for anyone to know what it's like being in his shoes," said four-time champion Jeff Gordon, who also commands a hefty throng of followers at the tracks. "Having to go through everything he has this past year and having to deal with so many people who want to see him or touch him and, at the same time, trying to make something work on the track. I think all of us [racers] go through that to some extent, but not what he's had to face [recently]."

When this year began, the attention was heaped upon him for more than the simple fact that his father, the legendary Dale Earnhardt, had died the year before. It was heaped upon him because he seemed like a legitimate championship contender given his experience (now almost three years in Winston Cup), the tight relationship that has formed between he and his team and the equipment and power provided by Dale Earnhardt Inc.

But, perhaps, it all got to be too much for him to handle -- the legion of followers that crave face time when Junior's trying to put in some preparation time and the appearances during the week that rob him of recuperation time after a bad weekend at the track.

"To finally feel like we had ourselves in position this year and come out and [struggle] -- it really was a letdown," he said. "It's nobody's fault. This year has just been one problem after another. In the past we beat ourselves. This year, we just can't seem to hit a stride like we did in the beginning of the season. I'm bound and determined, myself, and I think that's kind of starting to rub off on a lot of the guys on the team."

Junior's hoping that will have a positive effect: Winning. And if that happens, he's hoping his theory on victory holds true.

"When you're winning nobody's got any problems," he said. "All the problems are small and not even worth bothering (about)."

Rupen Fofaria is a beat writer for the Raleigh News & Observer.