“I always make things worse than they are or create problems that aren’t there. And going and doing some simple task becomes a problem. I start imagining problems that aren’t there. What people are going to think, who’s going to judge me and am I going to be good enough? Am I worthy?”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“When I was a kid, one thing I counted on was rushing home from church to catch the start of the race. There’s something really awesome about that routine.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“My role models weren’t holding steering wheels and mashing gears on Sunday. They wore burgundy and gold with names like Art Monk and Darrell Green.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I love running good because it meets expectations, whether it’s the fans’ or my own. And I know that they come to be entertained: they pull for a particular driver to be entertained by that driver’s success and that driver’s personality, and they relate to that individual.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Man, I was a troubled kid. I was going to get kicked out of a Christian school and got sent to military school for a year and a half, and I didn’t really have much direction until I got the opportunity to drive race cars.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I get asked one question a lot: ‘What celebrity encounter would render you starstruck?’ The answer is simple – anyone who’s ever strapped on a Redskins helmet, much less coached them to three Super Bowls.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I definitely find myself, as I get older, a lot more aware and concerned with the health of the sport.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Oh yeah, I’ve been in therapy in and out of my whole life.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I like ‘Man v. Food,’ ‘Diners Drive-ins and Dives.’ ‘Restaurant Impossible’ is pretty good, too.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I just Google whatever the hell I want to cook, and I try to cook it by what they tell me to do. If it’s not good, I don’t eat it.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I was in therapy as a child and definitely think that therapy is a very useful tool.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“There is nothing like winning a race.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“People get surprised when they see you out buying a DVD at Best Buy like somebody else should be doing it for you or something! They’re like, ‘What are you doing your grocery shopping for?’ Well, ’cause I’m starving!”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’ve done everything I ever thought I would do. I’ve done more than I thought I was capable of doing.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“In my eyes, Joe Gibbs could do no wrong.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’ve always wanted to win a championship so badly.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’ve never wished I was anybody else.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“My habit is to get real competitive and make racing probably more work than it is enjoyable, and I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I feel like there’s pressure from the outside – it’s probably not real, but it’s something I imagine.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I can’t remember ever racing without any pressure.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Nothing will ever feel like winning a Daytona 500. I’m never going to do anything in broadcasting, probably anything in any other professional job that will feel like winning the Daytona 500.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I grew up around it. That was what my friends were listening to – some of my closest friends are big hip-hop fans.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“As a race car driver, you kind of get stereotyped into, ‘Man, you like country’ – or you got to say you like country. I do like a lot of country. But I’m all over the board.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Normally, on the rare chance that a celebrity comes to my property, I get real nervous.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“My grandmother was a big Elvis fan, and I am, too, because she played Elvis, and she would keep me all the time when my dad was out of town.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“There was this guy I used to work with, and he listened to Patsy Cline all the time, so I liked that after a while.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Some people ain’t approachable, and some people are.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I hate disappointing people and letting people down.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I went from thinking, ‘I wonder if I can be a broadcaster. Will anybody give me a chance? Maybe I can get a shot at it,’ to thinking, ‘Man, I want to do this for a long time.’”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I look at my trophies and can’t believe they’re mine.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’m sure it’s the same whether you lost your parent at 25 or 45. When they die, the responsibility to do right by them and honor them becomes more important to you, because they’re not here to tell you, ‘Hey man, don’t be doing that,’ or, ‘Yeah, you’re making me proud, or you’re not.’”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Death is a weird thing.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“That’s one thing that frustrates me is to hear people today say I don’t have passion; my heart’s not in it. Man, what the hell? You can’t go to 38 races in 42 weeks with your heart out of it.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“There’s broadcasters that make me enjoy what I’m seeing because of their energy and how they explain what’s happening and paint that picture.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“As a driver, it was easy to find the negative in things. But when I got out of the car, everything about the sport, my whole perception of just about everything in the sport, did a 180.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“The 1979 Daytona 500 was awesome. It was almost like the first race that Ken Squier ever did. And so he was sort of introducing himself as well as the sport.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to be a Cup driver. When I was a kid, before I started racing in the Xfinity Series, I thought that I was never going to get a chance, and then, if I did, I wasn’t going to run well enough to maintain that opportunity and keep progressing.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I just didn’t look at myself with a lot of confidence. I didn’t think, ‘Man I’m a great driver. Boy, just give me a shot.’”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’ve been able to make a lot of money and live a lifestyle that I never dreamed of. And I’ve been able to provide for my family.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I never thought I would ever win a Daytona 500. I never thought we would sweep Bristol. I just never thought any of that stuff was going to happen or be possible.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“To me, I feel completely, um, utterly normal. I do everything everybody else does.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’m competitive, man. Competitive.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I can cook anything. Anything. I’m good.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I enjoy learning how to cook because I like to eat. Eating is good. Eating is fun.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“If I don’t like the car, I don’t get excited about racing it.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Orange is my favorite color overall.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Regardless of how I act, somebody is going to criticize me one way or the other.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I don’t know of any other driver on the track that doesn’t get hot under the collar.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“You don’t talk to Richard Petty unless he talks to you.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Every sport has a ‘guy’ that personifies what the sport is about and almost creates what the sport is on his own.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I am proud of the Earnhardt name, but it don’t stand alone. You know, it’s part of the sport, with all those other historic people that have been a part of it, and you don’t want people to forget the part you had in it and what you did and the contributions you made and the sacrifices you made.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“For the longest time, I was just real nervous about privacy and people prying into my personal business.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“That’s something that is important to me, that people know me and understand me.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“All these tracks you have memories at, all of them, Daytona included.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I want to continue to be a part of the sport, and not just as an owner in the Nascar Xfinity Series. I want to be a valuable asset to the growth of the sport and continue to help raise the bar and raise the awareness of the sport and promote the sport as much as I can.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’ve been with some great teams and had good wins and great success at certain periods of time in my career.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I always think about my dad. He’s always in the back of my mind. That helps me make good decisions. It has an influence on my life in every decision and everything I do.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I didn’t start driving race cars because of the fame or the money, but the most rewarding factor is being complimented on what you do, and your fans are always the first to do that.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I keep sour grapes in the fridge all the time. And I eat those all day long, all week long, all month. All the time.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“When I run a race, I, maybe inadvertently or unknowingly, concern myself with whether the fan was entertained or got what he expected or whether they got what I think they deserved out of me and out of the race.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I would give up barbecuing for a championship.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I would have loved to race from 1970 to 1980.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“The Dodge Charger in the late ’70s at Daytona, that looked like an awesome car.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Winning the championship is more than 50% driver. It’s probably 60% driver, 40% car. I don’t really know where luck fits in there – over the course of a season, everybody catches their breaks.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I like to sit around the pool, listen to music, barbecue, grill, stuff like that. Just the guy next door, I guess.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I always liked ‘The Last American Hero,’ the one about Junior Johnson with Jeff Bridges in it.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“When you’re around a sport awhile and sort of get to know everybody, you start to appreciate people more instead of just seeing a number and a sponsor and a competitor.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I used to have stomach ulcers and stuff when I was in the 10th grade. I’d be doubled over on the floor, I was hurting so bad. I was on Tagamet before it was over the counter.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“’Castaway’ is my favorite movie, and any time I read about a castaway or a story like that, it just interests me a lot.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I use my notes app on my iPhone religiously, and I have one note just for movies. Every time I see a movie I think I’m going to want to watch, I’ll put it in there.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“My favorite thing to do… is to get my big trailer grill and smoke some meat and sit around with my buddies all day for 12 hours cooking that and then eat at the end of the day.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’ve always felt like a lot of people’s misconceptions of me have to do with how I grew up. I grew up poor, and I grew up rich.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I think some people who have never met me have a misconception that when I was living with my father when he was successful, that I was somehow adversely affected by his success or the money he had and was making at the time.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Everything we do needs to be geared toward making the sport more accessible to the fans – the rules of the sport, how the race plays itself out, how people qualify into the races – everything needs to be as easy to understand as possible.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I wish Michael Schumacher would come try NASCAR. That’d be cool.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I wish I’d a got married sooner. I wish I’d a had kids sooner. I wish I’d a figured all that out sooner.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I was way behind in my maturity. I was a 30-year-old acting like a 23-year-old. So when I was 21, I was probably acting like a 15-year-old.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“John Madden, I always thought, was awesome.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I like Joe Buck. I know there’s a big divide on people that like Joe Buck and people that don’t like Joe Buck. But I love his cadence and tone and professionalism, and he’s smart.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“When someone tells me they’ve never been to a race, I tell them that the first one they should go to is Bristol, Tennesee. The shape of the track, the energy, and excitement under the lights is similar to what you might get at a stick-and-ball game in college football or the NFL.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I know a lot of Cup Series champions, and they each have a very different personality. They all go about handling adversity, their challenges, and even confrontation a little differently.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I think that our personalities and our souls have so much – we’re so much more than just blood vessels and bone and muscle.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Sometimes, you know, you – drivers are worried about being misdiagnosed and maybe missing a race when they don’t really have a concussion. But you can never take the risk there. It’s just too dangerous to layer concussions.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I don’t think any of us knew the dangers of repeated concussions or the fact that even when you got a concussion, the idea to go get treatment for it never entered our minds. We just didn’t have – we weren’t educated enough. We were really ignorant to it. I would get concussions in my early 20s racing, and it was a bit of a badge of honor.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I had a couple of chances to go inside the broadcast booth when I was out of the car in 2016 and loved it a lot.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Being a dad is great. Every day there’s something new.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’m not a huge fan of North Carolina barbecue. I like Memphis style barbecue and Kansas City.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’m a big fan of Myron Mixon. I’ve read a couple of his books, and I’ve learned the little bit that I know about barbecue from those books.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I love stock-car racing and NASCAR. I kind of take offense to anybody who has any cross words about it. It’s kind of like your brother. You can talk all the crap you want about him, but you won’t let anyone else do it.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I think that any time you share a secret, you’re a little nervous about people’s reaction to it.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“The first win was racing my Late Model at Myrtle Beach. It was twin 50s. We’d usually run a 100-lap feature, but it rained the week before, so they split the next weekend in half and made twin 50s. And I won the first one.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“A. J. Allmendinger is really hard to pass. He races really, really hard for every position. And you know, that’s his right. But it’s very frustrating at times.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“You form pretty strong opinions about the guys you compete against. You’re all very competitive; you’re all very selfish. So it’s easy to drum up some strong opinions in a second’s notice, like, ‘Argh! This guy!’”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I don’t like going on stage. Stages mean ‘nervous’ for me.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I’m a big fan of music. I need to be listening to music most of the time during the day.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“My first concert was Chicago and Moody Blues. I was 15 years old.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I always thought, if I wasn’t racing, one of my dream jobs would be as a scout, going town to town and trying to find bands in all these little dive bars. That would be so much fun, discovering music that way as opposed to from your phone.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“If I were to finish my career without a title, I would certainly be disappointed. But I don’t think it would be something that would eat away at me… I think I certainly would be able to live with it.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“Me and my dad never talked racing. We just didn’t. I wouldn’t go up and ask him about that unless I wanted to upset him.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“When you have a concussion, one of the symptoms that is common is anxiety. Imagine having the normal amount of anxieties that everybody shares – about life and meeting people in social spaces, whatever. Imagine that being multiplied by 10, 20. And so your worry over people’s perceptions of you multiplies.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
“I was a huge boxing fan, but it’s a sport where the guys punch each other in the head. I thought maybe I shouldn’t be a fan of that anymore. Maybe I shouldn’t allow myself to cheer a sport where the head injuries are a big part of it.”
― Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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