MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Sept. 12, 2016) – Now that his 2016 season is over, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a couple of things to keep him busy as he builds for his return to the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet SS in February.
First, it’s about getting healthy. A brain injury, which is what knocked him out of the 2016 season, is serious business, Earnhardt Jr. said, and it’s one reason why he isn’t competing right now.
“Thing is, when you have a head injury, racing is out of the picture,” the 41-year-old said in a taped interview with former crew chief Steve Letarte. “It doesn’t matter. You’re freakin’ concerned. ‘What’s going on?...[pointing to his head] Fix this!’
“I know what’s going to happen: as soon as I’m healthy, my focus is going to jump right back into racing. It was the same way in 2012. Doc says I’m good, Doc says I’m going to win races. And we had a great couple of years. I feel healthy and young, and I don’t feel like an old man that needs to be thinking about retirement.”
While he isn’t thinking about retirement, he is thinking about the next chapter in his life that doesn’t deal with racing, being an icon and a businessman. He’s thinking about his impending wedding to Amy Reimann.
Reimann has been an integral part of his recovery, Earnhardt Jr. said, and one of the reasons he’s pushing so hard to get back in the saddle.
“If Amy wasn’t with me, I probably wouldn’t be thinking about driving anymore,” he said. “I’d be a recluse, just kind of disappear. She is pushing me every day, every morning at 7 a.m. she’s got her exercise gear on, saying ‘let’s go, let’s go do this.’ I wouldn’t be this far along, I’d be just a mess emotionally. She’ll support me no matter what I choose in life. We’re going to get married this offseason, and I couldn’t be more impatient about that getting here and going through that process. I can’t wait to have a family and do all these great things and experience that.”
The passion to get back in the cockpit and do what he does is strong. Right now, though, he’s waiting on his head to match his heart. He’s taking an active role with his team, albeit a long-distance role, and isn’t sure if he’s cut out for being at the track three days a week.
“I wish I could tell you what that [his role] is,” he said. “When you’re not driving the race car, you just don’t feel like you have any purpose. ‘Get me in a race car, because that’s the only way I feel like I belong to something or I matter to someone.’ I know Rick [Hendrick] cares about me as a person and everyone at HMS feels the same way, but it really felt good to be a piece of the puzzle. Me and Greg [crew chief Greg Ives] FaceTime, they send me all the information after practice. We bounce ideas off each other about changes to the car even though I’m hundreds of miles away. That makes me feel useful; but I don’t know about being there Friday, Saturday and Sunday, just twiddling my thumbs and waiting for somebody to need me. That’s a little weird.”
Sense of humor intact, Earnhardt Jr. is playing the waiting game because he knows it’s the right thing to do, for his health long-term and his future.
“I still don’t feel like a normal person,” he said. “I have to wait until I feel normal every day.”
He is closing in on that feeling, and when he gets it, he’ll have another goal: winning races and being a driver again.
“I have the passion to race,” he said. “I love to win, run good, to be part of a team.”