Dale Earnhardt Jr. opens up to Danica Patrick about his 'most important moment' with Dale Sr.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was a guest on Danica Patrick’s latest Pretty Intense podcast episode this week, and as two icons who transcended NASCAR into the general sports world, they, of course, talked a lot about racing. And the time they appeared in Jay-Z’s Show Me What You Got music video.
But much of their conversation revolved around Junior’s complicated relationship with the late Dale Earnhardt Sr., who was in a fatal crash on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
And Dale Jr. shared a story that he described as “the most important moment in my life with my dad.” He said it was an unplanned exchange with his father that he feels “very lucky” to have had, especially since it happened within a year before Dale Sr.’s tragic death.
Earnhardt said he was writing a column for a popular racing magazine called the Winston Cup Scene because he loves to write, express himself and share his side of stories.
“One night, for some reason, I sat down by myself, and I wrote this sort of essay about Dad and what he meant to me,” Dale Jr. said on Danica’s Pretty Intense podcast. “And it took me no time at all to write this, and it just poured out with so much ease. And I was extremely proud of it.”
He said he’s not sure exactly when this happened but guessed it was a few months before Dale Sr. died. He explained:
“And so I was like, ‘I’m gonna take this, and I’m gonna publish it in this thing. And everybody’s gonna read it, and everybody’s gonna know how I feel about my dad.’ But I was scared to do it without asking him. You don’t do anything about Dad, with Dad, with the use of his name or anything without going to him and saying, ‘Hey, is this OK?’
“So I asked him if I could see him for a second. He’s up in his office at . I go up there with that piece of paper, and I said, ‘Hey, I got this thing I wrote, and it’s about you. I want to put it in the Winston Cup Scene in a couple weeks, and I just need to make sure you’re OK with it.’
“And he takes it, and he reads it, and he stands up, and he starts walking around reading it. And it’s only, you know, about a page. And he stops at the end, and he takes a minute. And he says, ‘You know, we never tell each other how we feel about each other, but in reading this, I know exactly how you feel.’
“And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Man, that’s exactly how I feel about you, and I didn’t know you didn’t know that — you know, that I thought you were this great, amazing thing.’
“And he was like, ‘I’m so glad you did this. I’m so glad you shared this with me.’ He doesn’t talk this way.”
At this point, Patrick said she was choking up about the story and was glad Dale Jr. was doing all the talking. He continued:
“It was amazing! And so he’s like, ‘You can’t use this in this publication. You’ve gotta save this for a book or something.’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not saving this! This is how I feel right now, and I want everybody to know it. So I’m gonna put it out there.’ And I did.
“But anyhow, I think had that not happened — had I not had that written — that moment is the most important moment in my life with my dad, without a doubt. We had won races together and stood in Victory Lane together, but to know that he knew how I felt about him is really important because knowing that he would pass away many months later. …
“Had I never got to share that with him, man, that would be tough going the rest of my life wondering if — I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. Every believes what they want to believe, and I kind of have my beliefs, and I don’t know what they are sometimes. I don’t know what to believe or what to expect. But if I was to never cross paths with him again and he’d leave this world without being able to share that with him would be so hard. I’d be in such a harder place in spending all these last 20 years without him.”