Found these interview clips with Dale Jr.
Pretty interesting to hear what was going on in his head through his career.
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Found these interview clips with Dale Jr.
Pretty interesting to hear what was going on in his head through his career.
^^After watching that, and a few more from the same interview, it gave me even more reason to like the guy. He was down to earth, honest and refreshing to watch.
His honesty n so dam down to earth attitude makes it impossible not to like him.
Very cool how well he's adjusted to being in the broadcast booth.
Kudos Dale Jr.
SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. has spent this season working in the broadcast booth for the first time in his career, but he will make another “first” in two weeks at Richmond Raceway. Although he has retired from full-time racing, he will make a one-race start in a JR Motorsports Chevrolet in the Sept. 21 Xfinity Series race at the track.
It will be his first NASCAR start since he climbed out of his Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 after the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season finale in Homestead, Florida, last November — and it might just be his last, he hinted.
RELATED: Dale Jr. through the years
“I’m looking forward to it,’’ Earnhardt said of his Xfinity Series debut this season. “I didn’t miss racing at the start of the year at all. I didn’t miss driving much. When I got back to the broadcasting and started to really plug into what the races were like and what was going on, you see moments in the races that make you wish you were out there doing that. And so, I started to miss it a little bit.
“I like Richmond as a track. And it’s a pretty straightforward little race track. We have had success there. I’m not really putting any expectations or pressure on myself as far as performance. I just want to go run and have fun.”
And, Earnhardt said, it just may be the last time he enters a major NASCAR race.
“It’s the only time I’m going to race a car this year. And it may be the last time I race a car,’’ he said.
“I really don’t know what our plans are going forward. I don’t really have any initiative to drive a ton of races. So, we’ll just kind of see what kind of opportunities there are down the road with the sponsorships and so forth that help the rest of the company. But, hopefully I get to run all the laps and just enjoy driving the car.
“The only reason you get behind the wheel of a race car is because it’s fun and you enjoy the competition. Hopefully those are things that I get out of it and try not to get real competitive about it. I don’t want to sweat over every lap and how fast we are in practice and all those things, and make it a miserable experience because most race car drivers tend to do that if you’re not careful.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s lone scheduled race of the season — a one-off Xfinity Series effort — was intended to be a flashback, a low-pressure return to NASCAR competition after his retirement from full-time racing last season. It was also intended to be enjoyable, a goal that Earnhardt reiterated in a pace-lap radio communication to his pit crew: “Let’s have some fun, man.”
After 250 laps Friday night at Richmond Raceway, the fun factor was a turning-back of the clock to long-ago days, a rekindling of memories planted nearly two decades earlier to the last time he’d enjoyed racing this much.
“When I was racing Late Models in the ’90s, probably,” Earnhardt said. “I had a lot of fun in the late ’90s running the Xfinity Series, but I didn’t know I was having fun. I didn’t know how good I had it.”
PHOTOS: Sadler reflects on racing Junior for final time | Junior’s career in pics
Earnhardt had a sense of how good things could be by exceeding his own expectations in Friday night’s Federated Auto Parts 250, where he led a race-high 96 laps before slipping to a fourth-place finish. The longtime fan favorite soaked in adoring cheers, spent time with his growing family and accepted well-wishes from many of his peers after the event.
It was an overflow of emotions for Earnhardt, who qualified second in a patchwork fifth JR Motorsports entry, then used a veteran’s poise to conserve his equipment and rise to the lead near the race’s midpoint. He picked up his first-ever stage victory and stayed solidly in contention, building a striking sense of anticipation that his one-race return could be a winner.
The apprehension wasn’t just the crowd’s. It was Earnhardt’s, too.
“I tried to come in here and just think, man, I really just want to have fun, I want to race, I want to do everything I’ve got to do,” he said. “Right around three-quarters of the way through that race, I’m like, man, if I don’t win, now I’m going to be disappointed. I done backed myself into a corner with my expectations getting so high. It’s easy to be disappointed that we didn’t win because we should (have).”
Those prospects held firm until Earnhardt’s No. 88 Chevrolet lost the race off pit road in the next-to-last caution period and faded with tire spin on a sprinkling of late restarts. Still, if there was any rust in his first race since last November, it barely showed.
MORE: Dale Jr: ‘We’ll try another one next year’
“If you think about it, when a guy steps out of, say a baseball player no matter what level takes months and months off and get back out there, they don’t just start and pick up right where they left off,” Earnhardt said. “The sport is elite, the drivers are elite and this ain’t a hobby. These guys are the best. Some of these guys in this field will be winning Cup races and championships one day. … You just can’t assume you’re going to miss eight months or 10 months and come right in here and win, much less run in the top five. My expectations were just to kind of be in the top 10.”
Though his competitive juices got going once the field went green, Earnhardt was loose in pre-race ceremonies, conversing with his wife, Amy, and doting on his 4-month-old daughter, Isla Rose. Two fans pierced the intimate family moment, yelling out “Slide job!” in a nod to the TV call that resonated in Earnhardt’s debut as a broadcaster for NBC Sports. Earnhardt made eye contact and grinned.
He’ll resume his primary duties from the television booth starting Saturday evening at Richmond. But for one night at least, the 43-year-old driver was rejuvenated, having the same sort of adventure as a kid trying to scratch out a career at dimly lit short tracks with his Late Model crew.
This time, though, he got to spend it with his wife and daughter, coming oh-so-close to creating scrapbook memories in Victory Lane.
“She obviously won’t remember this, but she’ll have the photographs and all that stuff,” Earnhardt said of his infant daughter. “I don’t know what she’ll think about my racing career and how that’ll register with her since she won’t get to experience any of it, but we got to have one race together and Amy wouldn’t miss it. Isla’s here. It was a pretty important moment for me, personally.”
OMG he looked happy last night, downright impressive drive from drop of the green flag on forward.
Lots of empty seats in the grandstands at Dover today.
So what's up with the idiotic looking stickers they're putting on the cars? I think they're called "car emojis", which makes it much worse.
Chase Elliot gets it done, wowzers.
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