HOMESTEAD, Fla. (Nov. 18, 2017) – On the occasion of his final race weekend as a full-time NASCAR Cup Series driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. took to the microphone in the media center at Homestead-Miami Speedway for one last time.
Dishing on a multitude of topics—always circling back to the event at hand—Earnhardt Jr. was as engaging and excited as ever, even going so far as to ask ESPN’s Bob Pockrass a question of his own.
“So, Bob (Pockrass)…where is Bob? I have a question man because I don’t even know the rules anymore,” he quipped. “So, if I retire and then if I want to run the Homestead Xfinity race next year, that is legal for me to do, right?
Pockrass answered that it was...for now.
“So my Cup experience no matter if I am retired or not doesn’t keep me out of being able to run that event because I have got two right now, maybe three, and I haven’t decided where I am going to run them but Homestead would definitely be on the list if it is a race I can run,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “I just like the track so much.”
That is true, and so is the fact that he has a vacation home in Key West, where he spent the early part of the week working on a DIY project for later broadcast.
“We came down to Key West early this week and worked on that renovation project and had some fun,” he said. “Sorting things out over there and drove up here last night. Had a good night’s sleep. Obviously, we enjoy the Keys. The Keys had a difficult past several months with (Hurricane) Irma. We have a lot of friends down there that were affected by that. On the drive from Key West all the way up here, oh man, they are still really, really struggling. A lot of people still displaced. A lot of people lost their homes. It is still a very difficult and challenging situation for a lot of people in the middle Keys.
“But one of the things that I saw that was really neat and kind of uplifting was not only Key West Old Town – the town itself, they are ready for people to come. They’re ready. It is as if they didn’t miss a beat. So, if everybody is wondering if the Keys are open for business, they are. And those people are ready to serve you. On the drive up here, every mile there is a make-shift sign out of plywood with whatever business name is painted on it with big OPEN spray painted on there. Those people are resilient and they need people to go down there and vacation and help the economy in that particular area. It looks like they are working hard to get back on their feet. That is really fun to see.”
“I’ve never owned a vacation home before until we went to Key West in ’08. We just love it down there. It was really good to spend a couple of days down there are see how everyone is doing.”
Getting up to the track was liberating for him, he said.
“I’m looking forward to getting on the track and get our car handling, and see if we can make the thing get around there pretty good so we can have some fun on Sunday,” he opined. “This track is really one of the more enjoyable tracks for me. I like running the high side everywhere that we can, and this place begs for it. It is so much fun trying to put the car on the fence, making speed up there. The guys are getting better at it, so it is a lot busier and crowded on the high line. Still, it is a fun thing to try to accomplish and do well. I feel like I’ve always had a knack for that throughout my career, finding that groove at a lot of different tracks.”
Despite the fact that this is the last go-round for Earnhardt Jr. as a full-time driver, he’s anxious to experience his send-off.
“I’m not dreading any of it,” he said. “I don’t know what to look forward to. Whatever is next. I have an opportunity to do an interview here in a minute with Michael Strahan. I’m really looking forward to having a chance to chat with him for a bit considering his transition from athlete to behind the microphone and in front of the camera. I think that he can give me quite a bit of advice on my next chapter in life. I’m looking forward to taking pictures with Matt (Kenseth) later today with our cars. It is something that he and I have been talking about trying to organize to be able to do sometime. I’ve known about his paint scheme since Dover, and he’s like ‘Man, we should get a picture together.’ So, we are going to try and do that tonight at 7:30. Then Matt is going to have a picture, and I’m going to have a picture with all the people who have worked with us in the sport--I don’t know how they organized that. I’m interested in how many people show up and who shows up.
“So that will be fun. I’m really looking forward to those things. I can’t wait to get into the hauler to see Greg (Ives, crew chief) and get the car and see all my guys. And I can’t wait to go practice with them and work, and do what we’ve been doing all of these years. I like the track and I’m glad we are ending on one that I like. That enjoyment for racing here will keep me engaged because I want to enjoy this weekend. But, also, we want to end well. We want to be competitive. We want to work today, and we want to work tomorrow. We want to put in a good effort this weekend. That will be fun to try to figure out if we have a competitive car. I look forward to getting to work on it.”
He’s stated that he wants to win the race, as any racing driver of his caliber does. But if he doesn’t, what does he want to accomplish in his final race?
“Well, in the car I just want to run all the laps,” he said. “I want to finish the race in one piece. I don’t have anything outside the car that’s on a ‘to-do’ list. As far as I’m concerned, I’m good with coming in here and doing the things we always do every race weekend. I want to get it documented, I guess. That would be good to have so we have someone here taking pictures. We’ve been gathering a lot of footage over the last several months for a possible documentary. It depends on how good all that is. So, we’re sort of documenting it, which is going to be fun. I might run that visor cam again. I just have to see how I feel the vision is when I’m out there practicing with it. So, I’ll have that footage to pocket and have forever.
“I’d like to finish the race in one piece, whatever that is. Obviously, you want to do as well as you can. But no matter where we finish, (I’d just like) to be able to pull down pit road, stop the car, and get out. And then, see my guys and do all that. It would be a bit of a heartbreaker if we have any kind of issue that would take us out of the event and not be able to finish.”
This is a done deal, he said, and there are no regrets.
“No, I don’t need to reconsider,” he stated. “This is great timing for me. It’s time for somebody else to get in that car and get out of it what they can. And with Alex (Bowman) coming in behind, it’s just a great opportunity for him. It’s his time. It’s now his moment going into next season to take his career wherever he can go. And mine, in my heart, has run its course. I’ve felt very good about that decision before the race in Daytona started in February, that this was it. And I was more thankful to be able to compete this year than I was to ever question whether I should go farther. With everything we’ve been through, with the concussion and trying to come back, the emotion was ‘man, I’m so glad I get to run this last year.’ It was always this is the last year. And I’m glad I get to run it. And, when I started in Daytona, I didn’t know whether I would finish, you know, feeling delicate and feeling compromised and knowing how easily that could happen again. I confided in my friends and family and my wife that I was worried that I could get another concussion and how disappointing that would be. So, I’m sitting here healthy. And I’m going to run this last race. And I got all the way through the year, so I feel blessed. I feel really good with it.”
There is no question that he’s had a wonderful career. Amid so many moments, which are the ones that stand out to the man himself?
“Well, I don’t know. If you change something it’s like a domino effect and there’s no telling what else it might alter,” he said. “I’ve said this before. I think that I wish I’d have known from probably 2000, or maybe even 1998, all the way up until the time when I went to Rick’s (Hendrick) to work. I learned so much at Rick’s about being an asset to your team and being accountable and being available for your crew chief and being more than just holding the steering wheel and driving the car. When I was racing for my family, I took advantage and didn’t take it seriously. There were days when I would come into the garage to practice and everybody was in their cars pulling out of their stalls and I’m just walking in. And, nothing was wrong with that, you know, in my mind. That’s crazy. I mean, you’d be fired in this day and time if a driver was that carefree about it. It didn’t seem to matter. As soon as practice was over, I’d go sit in the truck and if Tony (Eury) Jr. and Tony (Eury) Sr. hadn’t asked me a question in five or ten minutes, I was in the bus playing video games for as long as I could. I was up until 2 in the morning playing video games on Friday and Saturday nights. I just had no idea how to take advantage of the opportunity that I was given. I’m sure I could have accomplished so much more if I had been plugged-in.
“But I didn’t learn how to do that until I came to work at Rick’s. Steve Letarte said’ man, you’re going to be in the hauler an hour or 30 minutes before practice.’ I was like whoa (laughter). There were a lot of these like, rules. And I learned right then that I needed to be held accountable, and that when I was, I performed and there were better results. It was a different time back then when I was racing that Bud car. But if I had taken it as serious as I did these last several years of my career, I’m sure there would have been some better results. We had a lot of fun and as far as I know, it didn’t drive under Tony Jr. or Tony Sr.’s skin too bad about the way I was. But it’s really two completely different extremes from the person I was then to the person I became racing at Rick’s. Being around Jimmie (Johnson) and Jeff (Gordon) and sort of emulating their work ethic… I had to work like Jimmie and Jeff. They would call you out, you know, if you weren’t as focused. And that was how a driver at Hendrick Motorsports was supposed to be. You were volunteering to go test. Now I never volunteered to go test anywhere. But you wanted to be the company guy. You wanted to do whatever it was that would help the company. And man, I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to go work there and learn that. But had I been able to apply that to the first half of my career, I would like to have seen what difference that might have made.”
There’s also a bit of work to do today, with the NASCAR Xfinity Series finale. Three of JR Motorsports’ cars and drivers are running for the season championship, and Earnhardt Jr. is excited to have the opportunity to see them do it.
“Oh yeah, yeah, I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “We have a debriefing with the drivers and the crew chiefs after our final practice and I want to be in there for that. Traditionally, that starts right around the same time the Xfinity race starts so I will miss the first several laps of the Xfinity race due to that debrief, but since it’s my last race, I think I want to be in the debrief. I will get a headset and come out to pit road and sit on the pit wall and watch the Xfinity race unfold.
“It’s really a proud moment for all of us, my sister and everybody at JR Motorsports to have the opportunity to be here at the final race racing for a championship whether it’s one car or three or four. There is a lot of pride in that. We came close last year and even when the checkered flag fell the pride in my heart was the same as it was on the first lap. I just thought it was so special to be there.”
It’s been a long time coming, he remembered.
“I remember when we came here and ran our first Xfinity race for JR Motorsports with Mark McFarland and we were kind of a patchwork of a ragtag crew and we ran 20th all night and we thought it was so awesome just to be there. We were so proud to be in the race and just be competing..‘there goes our car’..it was awesome. So, I don’t take that for granted and I know how hard it is to be good and be competitive so there is a lot of pride that we are even in the position to win a championship. (Daniel) Hemric is a worthy opponent. I know RCR will put everything they have to give him the best opportunity. So, looking forward to it.”
Tomorrow, on Sunday, Dale Earnhardt Jr. will buckle into his No. 88 Axalta Chevrolet and compete for the final time as a full-time racing driver. Today, he’ll be a team owner cheering his team toward a championship. On Monday, the rest of his life begins.
Stay tuned.