Earnhardt Jr. Reveals What He “Should’ve Appreciated More” Before Cup Series Retirement

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who retired from full-time NASCAR racing after the 2017 season, has revealed what he should have appreciated more at the time.

The two-time Daytona 500 champion admitted during an appearance on the Bussin’ with the Boys podcast that during his final Cup Series season, he realised that there were certain aspects of the race weekends that he had not fully appreciated during his long career.

“I hated practice,” Earnhardt Jr. explained.

“Because practice was a lot of times like testing. Testing and practice are very similar. In testing, you go to a racetrack in the middle of the week, weeks before you’re going to race there, and you’re usually there by yourself.

“You’re out there running alone, run five or 10 laps and then make a change. It’s very monotonous and boring. You almost get bored of telling (his pit crew) the feedback: ‘Okay, that made it a little better.’ ‘I didn’t feel anything.’ [Or] ‘We’re not doing nothing here, I’m just spinning my wheels.’ You’re just bored to death.

“When you practice on the race weekends, it’s the same thing, there’s no checkered flag, no winners or losers, it was maybe an hour. I just hated to do it. I wanted to race, the race was fun, but the practice was kind of boring.”

Commenting on his final race in 2017 at Kansas Speedway, he added:

“I was in my car and I it just dawned on me that there’d be a day where I’d never practice again. I was just sitting in my car and in my garage stall, and would say, yeah, I’m going to miss this part. I hated this part, but I should have appreciated it more.

“I’m going to miss watching my guys that I love, going to miss my guys that work, going to miss taking this car into them and ask them to fix it, that it’s not working right or doesn’t steer right and get them to make it work, saying the car doesn’t turn right and they’re going to try and fix it. I’m going to miss that puzzle and work on it.”

He concluded: “I knew I was going to miss driving in the race. I knew I’d miss the competition, but it was the prep work that I thought hated that I wound up missing as well.”

After his first Cup Series race in 1999 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Earnhardt Jr. accumulated 26 race wins, 260 top-10 finishes, and 15 pole positions. His best championship finish was third place in 2003. He also won the Xfinity Series championship titles in 1998 and 1999.