His head was pounding, his timing was off and sometimes things seemed a little fuzzy.

A hard hit in an April accident left Dale Earnhardt Jr. with a severe concussion and a bad case of paranoia -- if word got out that his head was bothering him, Earnhardt was certain it would ruin his career.

	Dale Earnhardt Jr., right, confided in fellow driver Dale Jarrett, left, after suffering a concussion in April.

"You just start back at zero,'' Earnhardt said about publicizing his concussion. "People are going 'Oh, he's finished, he'll never be the same.' And every time you run bad it's because of that reason, it's because of your head. So I just didn't say a thing.''

Earnhardt was injured in a wreck at California Speedway when his car hit the wall at an estimated 130 mph, according to an on-board data recorder. He had the wind knocked out of him during the wreck and also hurt his ankle.

But there was something else that just wasn't right.

Sometimes, it took him a second longer than everyone else to get a joke. Sometimes, his speech wasn't smooth. Even worse, he sometimes couldn't react fast enough on the race track.

Knowing fellow driver Dale Jarrett had suffered his own share of concussions, Earnhardt went to him for advice in early May.

Jarrett urged him to see a doctor, explaining that it took months to get over the concussion he suffered in an accident last September.

"I realized it was early this year before I felt like I was completely over this concussion,'' Jarrett said. "I wasn't the same person. I was told that everything was going to be fine, and everything wasn't fine.''

But the way Earnhardt saw it, he had only one choice: Drive through it, because getting out of the No. 8 Chevrolet certainly wasn't an option.

As a teammate to Steve Park, Earnhardt knew all too well how easy it is for a driver to earn a negative reputation.

Park bruised his brain in a wreck last September, and even though his slurred speech has cleared up and his on-track performance has improved, critics still doubt he should be racing.

"Steve, he couldn't hide his injury and he dealt with so much over it and he's never going to be the same,'' Earnhardt said. "I didn't want to go through that, so I didn't tell anybody.''

By speaking up now, Earnhardt is offering an excuse for his disappointing season.

Expected to contend for the championship, he instead sits in 14th place in the points with just one victory on the year. It would have been easy in May and June, when his Dale Earnhardt Inc. team was struggling, to offer his aching head as an excuse.

But he didn't because image is so important to the son of the late Dale Earnhardt -- a tough guy who never complained and whose injuries were something that were dealt with on any day but race day.

So Junior said he stayed quiet. Now that he's feeling better and running well, he isn't afraid to admit there was a problem.

And it's just one of many that NASCAR's biggest star is facing.

His contract with DEI is up at the end of the year. So far, he's refused to sign the offer in front of him. At issue, Earnhardt said, is the amount of appearances the deal will require.

With so many demands on his time, the 27-year-old wants some control over a hectic schedule that can keep him away from home for weeks at a time.

"What I'm doing with this new contract is I'm going to drive your car for X amount of money and 40 appearances. What you do with those appearances, that's your business,'' he said. "That way, I can kind of corral it, because it's not corralled, it's not under control.''

It's a sign that there's a serious side to Earnhardt, who has failed to shake the party-boy image that has followed him in his first three seasons in NASCAR.

	“	I guess I've kind of toned down just a little bit as far as being carefree and giving the appearance that I could care less so I can get a little more credibility. ”
		— Earnhardt

By holding out on a new deal, he figures he's proving to competitors that he's not just in it for the money and the fame.

His on-again, off-again quest for a steady girlfriend is still an issue because he won't give up a "guys' night out'' or playing video games in the middle of the afternoon. But he wants to be taken seriously and focus on the important things in life.

As the doting uncle to his 3-year-old niece, he's learned that that a child's needs outweigh the disappointment of, say, his satellite TV not working.

And as the co-owner of a Busch series car, he's accepted that being the life of the party also makes it hard to be the boss.

"When you go over and say something like, 'Get things tightened up around here,' they go, 'What's wrong with you? Junior must be having a bad day,'" Earnhardt said. "I guess I've kind of toned down just a little bit as far as being carefree and giving the appearance that I could care less so I can get a little more credibility.''

Since the death of his father in a wreck at Daytona last year, he's been forced to take a more hands-on role in the family business. He wants to prepare himself for the day he moves off the race track and into the boardroom at DEI, but he doesn't want to change who is he to get there.

"You learn, like over the past two years, that things can change and be different in a heartbeat,'' he said. "Starting up that Busch team is going to maybe change everybody's idea of who I am.

"But I think when I'm 40, I'll want Carson, my little niece, to come out and hang out with me because I'm cooler than her mama. That's important to me that I stay cool. I hope I can hang onto that.''