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Dale Earnhardt Jr is no longer only Amy husband as fans fall in love with him
Dale Earnhardt Jr is no longer only Amy husband as fans fall in love with him. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was gone, and so were they.
Hundreds of fans poured out of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway grandstands Sunday, barely halfway through the Brickyard 400, when Earnhardt’s No.88 Chevrolet wheezed into pit road, its radiator smoking, its day done.
Earnhardt climbed out of his car under a sign for Gasoline Alley, drawing the loudest applause of the day, and disappeared from view. Fans in blue Dale Earnhardt Jr. T-shirts followed him out, walking to the infield parking lots, triggering a bizarre exodus of cars out of IMS even as the Brickyard 400 was still running.
Larryssa Mercer of Brownsburg, Ind., was wearing a faded blue Dale Earnhardt Jr. T-shirt and a devastated look as she walked out of the grandstands. Not sure that I was seeing what I was seeing, I had to ask her: Are you leaving because Dale’s out? Is that why everyone’s going?
“Absolutely,” said Mercer, 48. “Well, I don’t know about everyone else, but I came here to watch Dale race. If he’s not racing anymore, I’m not watching anymore.”
Larryssa didn’t grow up a NASCAR fan. Her husband was, and he liked Earnhardt, so Larryssa started paying attention to this sport and to that driver. And she fell in love. A few years ago, Larryssa divorced her husband. She kept Dale Jr.
“I love how he’s always so positive,” Larryssa said. “Win or lose, he’s always got a smile on his face.”
Lose or lose, these days. Earnhardt hasn’t won since 2015 and has barely contended in 20 starts this year. He wasn’t going to win this Brickyard 400, but his fans didn’t come to IMS to watch him win. They came to see him race. And for many, they came to say goodbye.
Dale Earnhardt Jr is no longer only Amy husband as fans fall in love with him.
Earnhardt announced in April that this season, his 18th, would be his final as a full-time driver. His retirement has seeds dating to 2012, when he suffered two concussions in six weeks. Less than three months after news broke in March 2016 that Earnhardt was donating his brain to concussion researchers, he suffered another concussion at Michigan that ultimately sidelined him for the final 18 races of 2016.
And so while Kyle Busch dominated most of the race — until crashing with Martin Truex Jr. on a restart on Lap 110 — Earnhardt dominated it in every other way, the same way he has dominated the 2017 Cup Series.
Drivers who are this beloved don’t come along very often. Given the popularity precipice facing NASCAR, which is teetering on the abyss of irrelevance, a driver this popular might not come along again.
Look, if you know much about NASCAR, you already know that. While the country’s top stock car circuit has always had one or two dominant personalities on the track, those dominant personalities — think Jeff Gordon; think Tony Stewart; think, even, Dale Earnhardt Sr. — tend to generate as much hate as love.
Not Junior. Not Little E. For him, it’s all love, a testament to his ability to drive a car, sell Budweiser and act like the regular country dude he seems to be, not the multimillion-dollar tycoon he was born to be. The results have diminished — he has zero wins and one top-five finish in 20 starts this season, compared to 26 wins and 143 top-fives from 1999 to 2015 — but not the popularity.
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And Earnhardt’s ability to move product remains unmatched. During the thunderstorm that delayed Sunday’s race for almost two hours, business was booming at Earnhardt’s memorabilia trailer. Nearby, the memorabilia trailer for Kyle Busch was making do with one clerk. Kevin Harvick’s trailer has two clerks, Jimmie Johnson’s three.
Earnhardt has nine clerks and two trailers.
Golf balls, pingpong balls, gray footies with “Dale Jr.” sewn in hot pink, this trailer — sorry, these trailers — sell some really silly stuff. I ask a clerk if they have any Dale Jr. onesies, and she asks me which size and points to a rack that has onesies for babies at 6 months, 12 months and 18 months.
Sorry, I tell her. I was just trying to name the silliest thing I could think of to put the Dale Jr. name on. One cash register over, a male clerk has the answer for me: “Try one of these Dale Calls,” he says.
A Dale Call, it turns out, is like a duck call — only, instead of summoning the sound of a duck at mating season, it summons the sound of Earnhardt’s No. 88 engine. For $29.99.
“These are very popular,” the clerk tells me.
And now this popular driver, arguably the most popular driver in NASCAR history, is leaving — with no heir to take his place, and with what happened Sunday demonstrating that support for NASCAR and Dale Jr. can be mutually exclusive.
My path leads me past Earnhardt’s garage on Gasoline Alley, where I spot Larryssa Mercer leaning against the chain-link fence, trying to get one last glimpse of Dale Jr.
I don’t have the heart to tell her:
Dale Jr. is gone. And he’s not coming back.
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A former Ferrari engineer has criticised the decision to bring in Lewis Hamilton and thinks the Brit’s presence will mean “a lot of potential for drama”.
At the age of 40, seven-time Formula 1 champion Hamilton will form a formidable driver partnership with Charles Leclerc. His big switch comes at the expense of Carlos Sainz, who has performed well for the Italian squad but who was axed so they had room for their blockbuster new signing.
But not everyone of a Ferrari persuasion is convinced that it will go well. Ernest Knoors, who spent many years as an engineer at Maranello, specialising in power units, worries that Hamilton’s presence could do more harm than good for a team that is finding its groove under Frederic Vasseur.
“A big name like Hamilton also brings a lot of politics and if politics within Ferrari are not managed well, then there is a lot of potential for drama,” he told Formule1.nl. “Hamilton has the tendency that if things do not work out, he turns his whole car upside down and starts experimenting.
“Ferrari believes very much in the big personalities and will follow him. But Hamilton is just someone you have to guide a little bit and not give the freedom to rebuild the whole car, because then it will go completely wrong. So I do not know if it is such a smart move, but of course it is nice for the sport.”
News of Hamilton’s planned move broke on February 1, coinciding with football’s Transfer Deadline Day. That the back pages of many newspapers were dominated by the decision of Hamilton to swap Mercedes for Ferrari was testament to the magnitude of the announcement.
Sainz was not surprised as he had been informed by his team of the plan ahead of it being made public. But the Spaniard responded well with two victories to date this season and five further appearances on the podium, on the way to what looks likely to be a fifth-placed finish in the championship – two spots and 54 points ahead of Hamilton.
Sainz has signed for Williams next year and, after several years of running at the front of the grid, will focus on his new challenge of helping restore one of the grid’s most historic teams to its former glory. But Knoors believes he should have been kept on by Ferrari instead.
The Dutchman added: “I see Lewis Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari more as a PR move. With all due respect, Hamilton is not going to take that Ferrari from P6 to P1. He will get the most out of it, but what Ferrari has to do is make that car faster. And if you make that car faster, you can easily drive at the front with the current line-up.
“Besides, as a team you have to look further on the horizon. If Hamilton becomes champion in the coming years, he and Ferrari will become immortal. But if you want to build a team with talent for the next five years, are you going to build on Hamilton? No, because he will really be finished after two or three years. That is why I would have kept the very strong line-up that Ferrari has now.”
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Chase Elliott had a front-row seat for one of NASCAR’s most bizarre moments of the 2024 Cup Series season. At the start of Stage 2, the pace car dove onto pit road in front of Elliott; however, it was a tad too late. The pace car made contact with the sand barrels at the entry of pit road and caused a red flag for cleanup.
Initially, there was some speculation on the NBC Sports broadcast, even from the No. 9 team, that Elliott made contact with the pace car. Fortunately, the pace car didn’t slide across the No. 9 car’s nose, but it undoubtedly provided one of NASCAR’s craziest red flag moments in recent memory.
Below, you can listen to Elliott and the No. 9 team react to the pace car crashing into the sand barrels on pit road at Phoenix during Championship Weekend!
Reflecting on the recent retirement of 2017 NASCAR Cup Series champion Martin Truex Jr., Earnhardt didn’t mince words about the toll NASCAR takes on its drivers. Speaking candidly, the two-time Daytona 500 winner admitted that the pressure to perform every week left him feeling miserable for most of his racing career—a sentiment he believes is shared by many of his peers.
“Right or wrong, racing made me a miserable person 90% of the time,” Earnhardt confessed. “And him too. I mean, ask Kyle Busch, ask anybody—unless you’re winning, you’re not happy.”
For these elite drivers, the sport is a relentless grind. A podium finish might bring temporary relief, but anything short of victory is often a source of frustration. The immense effort poured into preparation and execution rarely feels like it pays off unless the checkered flag is theirs.
Earnhardt highlighted the mental toll of falling short, explaining how the relentless focus on winning can overshadow the joy of simply competing. Even a solid performance feels hollow compared to the euphoria of a win.
“Unless you’re winning, you’re not happy at all,” he said. “You’re okay with a good run, but for the most part, all the effort it takes just to run good—it doesn’t weigh out.”
For drivers, the stakes are sky-high every week. Sponsors, fans, and teams demand nothing less than excellence, leaving little room for error or personal satisfaction in anything less than a dominant performance.
Earnhardt also shared insights into his friendship with Martin Truex Jr., who recently announced his retirement. While the two often spend time hunting together during NASCAR’s off-season, Earnhardt noted that the stress of racing even creeps into their leisure activities.
“When I’m with him during hunting season, it’s always in the back of his mind,” Earnhardt said. “It’s that stressful part of the year when he’s as miserable as he’s going to be.”
Now, with Truex stepping away from the track, Earnhardt looks forward to seeing a lighter, happier version of his long-time friend. Without the weight of weekly competition hanging over him, Truex might finally be able to relax and enjoy the outdoor lifestyle he cherishes.
“It’ll be fun to see him loosen up,” Earnhardt added.
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