/> "I have a great relationship with Richard and I feel like on his behalf, that he stepped his programs up. He's made a great effort to improve and be as good as his teams can be," Earnhardt said Thursday during a press conference to announce he was leaving DEI after the season's end. "But I don't know whether – I've got to do a little soul searching about how I feel about driving a No. 3 car. That doesn't change my opinion of whether I would go drive for Richard or not. I don't have to drive the No. 3 car. But I don't personally know whether that's what I want to do, specific to that number. I need to really sit down. Because like I said, I'm going to make this decision once. So I have to really ask myself if I want to be driving that number the rest of my career. With respect to my father, I don't feel very comfortable with that. He made that number what it is. With respect to him, I believe that it belongs to him, you know what I mean? I never say never, and I've told you guys before that I was interested in doing that but later in my career, and I still feel like that. I still feel that way. If that's something Richard's interested in, we can explore that, but that's a long way down the road. And again, I'm just going to, like I said, I'm going to listen to everybody who wants to talk and form my decision from those discussions."