Joe Rogan - Dale Earnhardt Jr. on His Relationship with his Dad

Um, how much did you learn about racing from your dad? Harley nothing, man. I mean, we, uh, I would get asked all the time, what your dad taught you about X, Y, and Z. And we never talked about racing. Um, never. Wow. Yeah. We never talked about reason. Even when you started racing professionally. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. We never did. Um, he was always, uh, don't, you know, finished, he was so worried that me and Kelly wouldn't finish school that we would give up on school. He gave up on school as an eighth grader at 16 years old. He was 16 and eighth grade and quit and never finished high school. Never got no GD, nothing. And people would come up to him and say, or people would talk about him. Um, even while he was alive and ever since and, uh, say, look what this guy made of himself. Having quit the eighth grade. That's awesome. And he always hated that. That was embarrassing, uh, for people to, you know, he was embarrassed that he quit. He knows how bad it disappointed his own father. So he was always like worried about where I was, who I was hanging out with, whether I was, you know, doing my homework. And then even when I started racing, it was who I was hanging out with, what I was doing with my free time, what I was focusing on, whether I was, you know, thinking about, you know, what I was, whether I was on time for sponsor appearances and never, this is how you drive this corner. This is how you get around this racetrack. He never talked about that stuff. It was always the person being a man, being right, being good to people, being on time, being ready to work, uh, looking your best, um, general, you know, morals and values. He didn't, we never sat down and talked about racing. Like, I'm going to, you had to get around this corner and this is how you shift and shit like that. Well, in that respect, it was probably brilliant of them. Cause look, the championships came and you also turned out to be a great man. Thanks. I appreciate you saying that. I, uh, I don't know. I always felt like that when I was younger, I kind of let my father down because, um, there was this one time I was probably 12 years old and there was this, me and my buddy, we were going to play man. We're here. We're outside. We're going to play outside. My dad's standing over there and there was a bucket full of shit. And he's like, Hey, come here. Pull junior, pick that bucket up, move it over here. And I went over there and tried to pick it up and I was like, I can't lift it. And he got so pissed off at me because he knew I didn't try. And he got, he said to my buddy, Ryan, he was Ryan, come here, pick the bucket up and take it over there. And he turned around and gave me this look of pure freaking disappointment. And I felt like that set the tone for our relationship. Wow. For one bucket. I know. I feel like that that was the, uh, that was our relationship in a nutshell for most of my teenage years. You know, he looked at me as, you know, I don't know what he's going to mount to. I don't know what this kid's going to do. I don't know what, what, you know, what skills he has or whether he's going to ever get his act together or whether he's ever going to figure himself out, you know? And I probably didn't give him much reason to think different. Um, but then when we got, when I started racing, um, when I started racing, uh, late models, I ran 159 races and he never came to one. Uh, through 94 95 96 97, I raced at Myrtle beach, South Carolina every weekend and he never once came down there to watch me. And so he didn't know whether I was a good race car driver or a bad race car driver. He didn't know whether I was, you know, Working on my car or understanding how they, you know, what, what, how to build the car, fix the car. And when I would do good, I'd come home and I'd have a trophy and I'd say, Hey man, I won. And he'd go, well, who wasn't there? And I'm like, shit. He really did. I, the first, I remember coming home with a trophy and I could not wait till he would, he would walk, I kept my car in this, uh, in this building that was his. And he put all his deer head up there called a deer head shop. I'm talking 35, 40 mounts in this place, a couple of elk. And, uh, he'd come in there every Monday morning before lunch. And I had that trophy sitting up. We'd brought it home, man. It was right in view. Soon as he walks in and I got my car working on my car and he comes in there and I'm like, I'm like, he's like, so you want, huh? So he's a trophy. I was like, yeah, we did. And he's like such and such must not been there. Cause there was this one guy and then Robert Powell used to beat us all the time. And he goes, Robert must not been there. I was like, no, he wasn't, he wasn't there. You're right. I was so pissed off, man. I finally won a damn race and I thought that he was going to come in there and slap me on the back and man, you know, give me, give me a good talk. Um, did it give you more motivation that he didn't do that? I don't think so. I don't think it did. I think it made me want to, it did not make me want to win more. Um, but then one day, so right around the end of 1997, I was out of money. He was like, Hey, you know, you're out of money. You ain't gonna race. I was like, shit, my life's coming to an end. As far as I know it, you know, I'm not gonna, I guess my racing career, this is it, this is, it's coming to an end. 1997. Um, he was sitting down talking to, uh, he had a car that races in the Xfinity series that I told you about on Saturdays and his driver was leaving to go to a cup car and he was talking to his best friend, Tony senior. Is the guy's name that actually crew chiefs that car. And he's like, who are we going to get to drive this thing? We, who should we get? We got to hire a driver. And Tony senior said, why don't you put Dale Jr. in there? He goes, what? You serious? You really think so? He's like, you're going to spend a little money on this car. Why don't you spend it on your own kid? You know, why don't you just put, I can, I can probably make a driver out of him, Tony senior says so. And so they made the decision to put me in this car in the Xfinity series. You'd think that dad would come tell me, or we would have press conference, might be a press release. At least I walked into this is a month before the race season starts. I think I'm out of, I think I'm out of racing, right? I ain't been, I ain't even talked to anybody about what I'm racing or if I'm racing in a couple of months. I think that it's dried up opportunities are gone. I walk into the shop, uh, to get something where Tony and seniors car, Tony seniors race car was, and my name was on the roof. And I was like, I thought it was a joke, like a mean joke, a prank. And they were laughing, Tony senior and, and, uh, some of the guys in the shop are laughing and I'm like, man, that's messed up, man. Y'all are dicks for putting that name on there. This ain't no funny in there. And they were like, it's true, man. I was like, you mean I'm going to race this car. I'm racing this car. And they were like, yeah. I was like, really? And, uh, I mean, obviously I was thrilled, like, man, I couldn't believe it, but this is the way I found out. Not for my own dad. And I'm like, dad, I'm racing the car. Yep. I mean, like days later when I see him, I'm like, so I'm going to race that car. He's like, yep, yep, sure. Better get ready. And yeah. And I mean, it was, he was the strangest dude when it came, he didn't, he didn't really, but once, so I started racing that car and I had, I had great success. We won six or seven races the first year. We won another six or seven races the second year of championships in both seasons. So I mean, the choice to put me in that car worked out better than he probably ever imagined ever. And 159 late model races that I ran from 94 to 97, I won four in 159 late model races, I won four. So he put me in this car on a whim and a prayer. And we ended up winning championship two in a row. So he is thinking, damn, this little, you know, shit can drive a car. And that's when our relationship completely changed. That's when I hate his arm around me. We were doing shit together. We were doing, we were doing, we had sponsor deals and promotions together. We were doing photo shoots together. I saw him all the time. And we talked about all kinds of, you know, we talked about life, um, girls and, and everything, but racing. You know, we didn't talk about racing much, but just fine, but, um, it was awesome. And so 98, 99, and then 2000, I went to cup. He, he, he built a cup team around me. We had Budweiser come in for $10 million a year, which was the biggest sponsorship anybody had in that at that time. Um, and, uh, so, and then he got killed in 2001 at the start of the season and dates on a 500. So those three years, 98, 99, 2000 were as good as it could get. Wow. Yeah. That must've been amazing. It must've been amazing for you to turn that corner. Yeah. It was like a light switch. He went from, he went from not really engaging with me, me, not comfortable around him, feeling ashamed, um, not me, not measuring up. He's cause he's 10 foot tall cowboy boots, black hat, tougher and shit. Now you know, Intimidator, that was his nickname and I was blind, pale, short as hell, not a muscle on me and had accomplished nothing, you know? Right. And so it, but it overnight, it was like completely changed. We, we, we started running great and people were coming up to me. Um, like, dude, you're freaking, you're doing awesome. And you know, and he's, and he was, uh, he was real happy with that. He was pretty proud. It's crazy that he never talked to you about race. No, that's just so strange. I can't imagine. There was one, there was only one time that he did that. We were at a track called Bristol, Tennessee. We were, we were at a track in Bristol, Tennessee. Uh, it's a half mile high banked racetrack and we run 15 second laps around there. It's really fast and it's, it's kind of technical and tough to get around. Um, and I'd been race, I'm out there practicing and I wasn't, I wasn't doing it right and he got up on the, uh, he got up on one of the hollers and got on the radio and started talking to me and he was like, Hey man, I'm going to tell you how to drive it. And so this one day, one time in this one practice for about five minutes, he's like, I'm going to tell you how to drive his track. So I'm out there driving and I'm going to, he's like, I lift right here and I'd lift and he get in the gas. Okay. I'm turned there and he's just telling me how to drive the track. And that was the only time he ever did that. Do you just think of how much it would have improved? I know it really helped me there that day. I mean, like his, like when he told me how to do it, I'm like, holy shit. This is way, I would have never thought of doing it this way. And this is way better. Right. So yeah, maybe he could have given me a few more tips on some things. Come on, man. I mean, that's, that has to be so crazy because that's your profession and your dad is a superhero. Well, I think that, you know, I finally made it to cup and I think had he lived, he would have been in my ear all those years, you know, do this, do this, don't do this, this is the best decision today. Um, so maybe he just didn't, wasn't in a hurry to do it because he didn't know that he wasn't going to be around for it. Right. You know, how hard was it to race after he was gone? I thought about whether I should quit or not. Um, you know, I probably, if the, if it hadn't have paid a lot of money and I didn't have partners and people that were dependent on me or counting on me, I probably could have easily walked away from it. But we had a great partner in Budweiser that was incredibly supportive. Um, I had a lucrative opportunity in front of me personally to be a, be a race car driver for as long as I wanted to, which I wanted. And I just had to go through missing him really bad for a few months. You know, I had to, I had to go to the racetrack and everywhere I looked, you know, there's dad, there were fans mourning, uh, there were signs and paintings and things, you know, there was just markings and acknowledgments and just shit everywhere for like a year. Uh, and I appreciated it. I knew why it was like that. Um, but it took a while for me to, uh, sort of get to where I didn't, um, I was, I went, there was a little period of me, a period of time where I was real self-destructive and just like, uh, mad, you know, everything. Um, you know, took me a while to calm down and get to work, you know, for, for, for a while there, it was just sort of going through the motions. The, you know, I mean, you must've always known, I mean, everyone knows there's dangers involved in racing cars, but when it hit someone so close as your own father that had to change what racing felt like to you. Hmm. Yeah, I'm sure it, I'm sure it would have completely been a different experience, um, emotionally. Had that not happened, had, you know, racing for me would have meant something completely different. Um, you know, I just was, he was in, he was, uh, this, he was this invincible. Guy that, you know, wasn't supposed to get hurt. Wasn't supposed to, I mean, he was, he was, he was supposed to get hurt and drive hurt and be tough and, um, he wasn't supposed to get killed and leave us all. You know, he left the whole sport, you know, and, and no one knew what to do. Like that was like the whole sport was sitting there going, shit, what do we do? You know, he was the guy for everyone. And even, and even the competitors, you know, looked up to him like he was the guy. Like that, that's, that's the man. And, uh, so it was tough on the whole sport to big giant void for the whole sport. Um, but I, you know, we just, uh, huddled together, me and my team, me and our company, we, you know, I raced for my dad's company. So that whole company kind of just kind of held, held itself together and everybody kind of pulled, pulled together and worked our way through it. That first year in 01, just that year, you know, that he was killed, that was just a kind of a tough year. I don't even really remember anything much about what happened that year. Um, won a couple of races, uh, but it was, uh, otherwise, you know, the races where we didn't win, I can't even, I don't even remember much about them, you know, just retaining too much from it. It was just kind of a daze, you know. Oh, four was a great year. I think we kind of finally were coming out of the funk, you know, around 2004, kind of coming out of the cloud of that. I would imagine that being a race car driver and having your dad be who he was always carried a lot of weight, but did he carry more weight after he was gone? Were there more eyes on you? Yeah, I thought so. Um, you know, I thought he, he was tough. He knew who he was to the sport. And he knew, he knew that, you know, he carried, uh, he carried a big massive fan base and he knew that people listened to when he spoke and all those things. And so when he was gone, I think some people, some people kind of looked at me to try to carry that same load and even be that same person. And I just wasn't going to do it. Um, I was like, man, I'm going to be me. I'm going to be the, I'm, you know, like I said, he was, he's this 10 foot tall black hat and I'm, I'm this short scrawny pale kid that, you know, I was, I couldn't be who he was, I'd have been faking it and I couldn't be the intimidator, you know. So I just have always ever since then been me. And if that's good, if you like that, um, great. Uh, I think I've been relatable, honest, genuine. Um, and the fan base that I gained when, when he passed away, I thought we nurtured that and grew that, and I think we did a lot of great things, uh, in and outside the sport to, uh, to do that. Um, so I'm kind of proud of all those things. I thought I handled that well, um, considering there are a lot of different avenues to go at that time. And I think I chose some good ones and certainly probably could have made some different decisions and have regrets, but for the most part, I was able to, you know, add to his legacy a little bit. That was something that was important to me. I didn't go out there and win 90 damn races. I didn't win seven championships, but I didn't hurt his legacy. I added to it, uh, made a lot of people happy. Uh, there was an earn hard on the track. You know, that was good for a lot of people. Dale, you got a great perspective. Well, thanks.