Start No. 600 In the Books, Earnhardt Jr. Reflects on the Journey

Ron Lemasters | JR Motorsports | 3/27/2017

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. is now one of just 25 drivers to make 600 career NASCAR Cup starts, and after all the races, all the victories and spectacular finishes, he reflects on that milestone.

 

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (March 27, 2017) – Dale Earnhardt Jr. is now one of just 25 drivers to make 600 career NASCAR Cup starts, and after all the races, all the victories and spectacular finishes, he took a moment to reflect on achieving that milestone.

Prior to Sunday’s race at Auto Club Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. sat down with the media and opened up the door to his thoughts on the achievement.

Thinking back to his first start, in 1999 at Charlotte, Earnhardt Jr. remembered feeling a little…nervous.

“Oh, well, my first Cup race? I was really nervous,” he said. “I remember sitting on the starting grid or sitting in qualifying for the race and telling (then crew chief) Tony (Eury) Jr. that I would switch with him for a million dollars so he could do this instead of me because I was scared to death.”

It wasn’t the actual racing that scared him, but rather the weight of expectation.

“…They had made such a big deal about that whole thing,” he said. “I don’t even remember what the… they had some kind of a … they called it something like Countdown to E Day or some mess.  I forget what it was, but Budweiser made this big promotion about it and it was so much pressure and I was so nervous.”

That has certainly changed for the 599 starts to come, hasn’t it?

“We did OK in the race, I think we finished 16th or something like that,” Earnhardt Jr. continued. “I was overwhelmed with the weight of the situation and how much attention it was getting and it made it really hard to soak in and enjoy it I guess, but we just wanted to do so well and not fail. I don’t know what I could tell myself that would have made much of a difference in how I felt.  I don’t think I could have calmed myself any more with any kind of advice.  It would have been difficult to make any difference, I guess, it was so crazy.  It was fun.  It was a wild time.”

Since it wasn’t pre-ordained that he would even be a racing driver like his father, what came next was rather surprising. There was a time when he thought his life would be spent working at Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet, not driving in America’s biggest series. When he got the opportunity, it turned out he was more than up to the challenge, and that set his career in motion.

“…I just wanted to drive,” he said when asked about it. “I wanted to race cars for a living.  I wanted to do it well enough to be able to afford to make a living doing it.  I didn’t have vision or assume that I was going to make all of the money and success that we have made, but all I really wanted to do was to do it long enough so I didn’t have to get a real job. 

“I mean that as sincere as I can.  I’m real thrilled that I’ve had the opportunity to stay around and drive for some really great teams.  Some really awesome owners. Worked with a lot of amazing crew chiefs and crew members.  We have a really great group of guys that we race with in this current situation, we are having so much fun at the race track and really enjoy working with Greg (Ives, crew chief), so I feel fortunate and lucky.”

 

All he really wanted from Sunday was a solid finish, and 16th will do, but he had hoped for more.

“We have kind of been struggling a little bit to put together a good race this year and we qualified well last week, but didn’t run as well as we wanted to.  We had a little issue with the brakes and stuff like that, but those things are going to happen.  We will keep processing what we are learning and keep showing up every week and put it together eventually.  I really, really like this race track.  Obviously, you are running all over the race track, a lot of different grooves. That makes it a lot of fun as a driver.”

 Some of his memories from 600 green flags include the 26 victories he’s had, the All Star race that gave him his first taste of a Cup Victory Lane.

“I think back about the wins and maybe not even the wins, some races are really fun and satisfactory, but you are the only one that will remember then because you ran third or fifth or something like that and they are kind of obscure in most people’s minds,” he said. “I think about winning the All Star as a rookie just how fortunate we were to do that.  Winning the Daytona 500 twice.  I didn’t know that I would even win it once and everything that has happened.  The list goes on and on.”

“I would have never thought it would have been as good as it has been or as fun as it has been along the way.  I have made so many good friends.  I think about … as you get older you start to understand how you prioritize the things that are most important to you about the sport.  The camaraderie and the friendships that I’ve made kind of started down the list and as I’ve gotten older that has crept up the list and if it’s not number one, I don’t know what is.  All the people in the garage, the industry, the press, the friends that you make.  That probably is what you will miss the most once you are done driving is the people.  You are going to miss being around all these folks.  Driving cars and the adrenaline and all that is great and a lot of fun, but man the friends that you make here that is something we talk about too.  Just people we all have in common and have friendships with.”