Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s legacy is much more than race car driver

By Bob Pockrass
FOX Sports NASCAR Writer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If Dale Earnhardt Jr. had looked in the mirror 15 years ago, he wouldn’t have had much to say to himself, let alone the general public.

But it wasn’t always that way for the 47-year-old Earnhardt, now known as one of the most public-facing celebrities in the NASCAR industry.

"There wasn’t a whole lot to talk about when I was locking myself up in the bus playing Madden all weekend and driving a race car," Earnhardt said. 

"And then going home and sitting in the house and doing the same thing."

Earnhardt could sit in his house today, play video games and not talk to a soul. He could sit on his winnings from 15 years of Cup racing, probably get paid good money for occasional appearances and commercials, and live in the glory of a solid career and a famous last name.

But more than four years removed from his final Cup race, Earnhardt enjoys a public persona that has transitioned from race-car driver to team owner, television analyst, podcast host, concussion awareness advocate and social media star.

Talk to young people in the sport now, and they might look at Earnhardt more for what he does in his post-racing career than for the way he performed on the racetrack.

Take, for instance, Sam Mayer, who drives for Earnhardt’s JR Motorsports. Now 18 years old, Mayer was 14 when Earnhardt drove his last NASCAR Cup Series race.

How does Mayer, who was 12 at the time of Earnhardt’s last win, know Earnhardt? Does he view him as a Cup driver, a team owner or a media personality? 

"I know him as all three but mostly as the guy who is always having a blast on TV," Mayer said.

Another one of Earnhardt’s drivers, Noah Gragson, relates more to him as an owner who dabbles as a race-car driver once a year in the Xfinity Series.

"I see him as an owner and a friend and a mentor to myself," Gragson said. "One time a year, we also race against him."

Earnhardt’s 26 Cup wins, including two Daytona 500 victories, no doubt still rank him among the 50 greatest drivers of all time. But as the son of a seven-time Cup champion who earned 76 wins, matching his father’s statistics was a nearly impossible task. 

As he reflected on his career while looking ahead to his roles in the sport amid his induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on Friday, Earnhardt didn’t mind that his legacy might be more off the track than on it.

"It is OK," he said. "It is totally fine with me that someone may remember me for other things aside from my accolades on the racetrack or what I did behind the wheel of a race car." 

Go back 15 years, though, and few could have envisioned this type of presence for Earnhardt, who had won two Xfinity titles and one Daytona 500 and was arguably still maturing as a Cup driver in the years following his father’s death in the 2001 Daytona 500.

With a Budweiser sponsorship, a feature in Rolling Stone in 2000, an interview in Playboy in 2006 (following celebrity photographer status in 2003) and an episode of "MTV Cribs" in 2008, Earnhardt took some opportunities to allow the public a peek into his life.

But he seemed ill-equipped to grab the spotlight instead of the steering wheel. He was guarded and didn’t seem to care about anything other than fast cars and having a good time.

"I was real shy," Earnhardt said. "I was afraid of any kind of rejection or any kind of negativity. When you go put yourself out there, you risk someone not liking that opinion or someone not agreeing with you or making fun of you. 

"And I was really scared of that."

He then started dating Amy Reimann in 2009, and the two are now married with two kids. He started living a more normal life. 

"Her whole thing was fighting against the introvert that I was and trying to get me to get out and experience things more," he said. "The more I got out and experienced things, the more I had shared experiences with people. 

"I had more to say. I had more to tell." 

He still shunned social media until he won the Daytona 500 in 2014. But then he realized that a lot of people wanted to know what he had to share beyond what occurred at the racetrack.

"He enjoys people kind of feeling like they’re part of his journey," said Justin Allgaier, who has driven at JR Motorsports for several years. "He takes that very serious, that he’s bringing people along with him on his journey.

"He’s not afraid to say that he’s had his challenges of trying to go through all these changes to become a broadcaster, become a car owner, but he does it in a way that really involves people with his journey."

As a driver, Earnhardt could reach people every week from the racetrack. But once he retired following the 2017 season, he needed a new outlet. While sitting out half the 2016 season because of a concussion and looking for an avenue to tell his story, he realized that podcasting could give him a way to share on his own terms.

So instead of just contributing an audio recap of his race for "The Dale Jr. Download," a podcast produced by his media company, Earnhardt became a cohost in 2017. And as he grew more comfortable behind the mic, in his final Cup season, he set the foundation to sign as an analyst for NBC.

Podcasting also gave Earnhardt a new way to connect with his fellow drivers. Kevin Harvick, a 22-year veteran of the NASCAR Cup Series who replaced Dale Earnhardt in 2001, was at one point angry with Earnhardt Jr. for some of his remarks about driver salaries, and Harvick noted that the sport’s most popular driver was not its most successful.

The comments bothered Earnhardt, and he was often asked if Harvick would ever come on his podcast and they would talk about it. Well, Harvick, who said he doesn’t pay much attention to social media and had never listened to the podcast, finally appeared on the show in November. At the time, he didn’t realize how much anticipation there was for his appearance, but afterward, he felt the impact.

"There’s just a number of common ties which allows us to talk about things that I wouldn’t necessarily talk about with anybody else because they just wouldn’t really understand the moment or the situation or what the moment was like," Harvick said.

"There are things that I can only talk about there." 

Harvick isn’t the only one who seems comfortable at what has been dubbed the "table of truth," as some old-school racers have also opened up on Earnhardt's show about the ways they outsmarted NASCAR officials.

Maybe Earnhardt’s guests know how much he has shared — he has been open about his recovery from concussions and about seeing a therapist, plus he once told the story of urinating on his wife after she was stung by a jellyfish — and feel an obligation to match that transparency. Or maybe it's that they know he won’t be quick to judge them.

Because Earnhardt knows what it’s like to be judged. He wasn’t born with the intimidator persona displayed by his iconic father. And when the seven-time Cup champion died in a crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, millions of devastated fans looked to Earnhardt Jr. to fill the void.

Granted, some of those fans never gravitated to Earnhardt Jr. because of his more laid-back demeanor, but the vast majority followed his every move. And this podcast allows Earnhardt to better relate to them.

"I think I am normal," he said. "I am a normal guy that just has this really interesting experience. ... You have the same fears, the same insecurities. You have the personal battles between being motivated and determined and making good choices in life. And it’s fun to share experiences."

Earnhardt’s ownership of Xfinity Series teams also has a huge impact on his ability to tell stories. Not only can he provide analysis on the NBC telecasts from an owner’s perspective, but he also knows some drivers very well because they raced for him. In fact, three Cup champions won Xfinity titles for Earnhardt (Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski), and others, including Harvick and Tony Stewart, drove for the organization.

Rick Hendrick, a co-owner in JR Motorsports, typically uses JRM as a place to train mechanics and a way for future crew chiefs to gain experience leading a team. The number of people whose careers owe something to Earnhardt has to be in the dozens, if not the hundreds. 

"A guy like me, I’m very appreciative, very thankful that Dale has been in the owning side of the business," Truex said. "Without that, I might not have gotten that opportunity."

Truex isn’t the only one. And as Earnhardt has had more time in the ownership role, he has become more than someone who gives an opportunity. 

For Gragson — a young driver whose aggressiveness sometimes has cost him spots or caused wrecks on the track and whose social media posts early on displayed immaturity that made him a somewhat polarizing figure — Earnhardt has become a voice of reason and guidance.

"You’d hate to see somebody with all that potential not be able to enjoy it and see and go and have this amazing career," Earnhardt said. 

"There’s moments that you recognize somebody and see they need somebody. They’ve got a void that you can fill. And if they are receptive to it, you fill it. I have conversations with Noah where I feel like I am being helpful. ... It gives you a good feeling in your heart."

It might go deeper than that. During the NASCAR Hall of Fame dinner, NASCAR executive Mike Helton told a story about how Earnhardt’s father wanted Helton to talk to his son about responsibility in the sport. 

For Dale Jr., the tough conversations about managing life as a race-car driver and expectations as a pro athlete didn’t necessarily come from his father; sometimes they came from other team personnel. Earnhardt’s sister and business manager, Kelley Earnhardt Miller, suggested that those experiences made her brother realize the importance of mentorship. 

"Dale’s always been that way in wanting to be someone that people can lean on because he didn’t really have that when he came up through," Earnhardt Miller said. "He was looking for those types of relationships. And always wanted it out of our dad and never really got that."

On the broadcasting side, many will compare Earnhardt to Ned Jarrett, who won 50 races and a championship before embarking on a broadcasting career that lasted decades. 

"I knew Ned Jarrett as a voice, a guy that you loved to watch broadcast races," Truex said. "Is that where Dale is going to be in 20 or 30 years? That is going to be pretty interesting to see, but also pretty cool at the same time to see how much he has done for the sport and how much he is still part of the sport and probably will be for his lifetime."

Keselowski said it is just natural for that to happen with Earnhardt. 

"By nature, when you’re in the media as a race-car driver, people over time remember you more so for that than they do for your driving, just because of how our memories all work. You remember all recent," Keselowski said.

"Your career on the racetrack, in general, is shorter than what it is off the racetrack. Look at John Madden. He had one of the outstanding careers as a football coach, and people know him for a football game."

Earnhardt is fine with people thinking of him as someone who holds a microphone rather than a steering wheel. Another driver-turned-broadcaster, Benny Parsons, is the one Earnhardt modeled himself after, as Parsons won 21 races and a title before finding a role in the booth.

"I’m sure Benny’s proud of what he did behind the wheel of a race car, but he was more of an asset, more valuable to the sport, the industry or us as a broadcaster," Earnhardt said.

"The impact that he left on the sport from that position continues to benefit us today. ... He has opened up a lot of doors for people like myself, even crew chiefs, to go into the media side of things, and I’m thankful for that. I think he would appreciate someone looking at his career that way."

It’s worth noting that the money Earnhardt earned as a driver dwarfs that of Jarrett or Parsons, as Earnhardt raced at the time when driver salaries peaked. He doesn’t need to own a race team. He doesn’t need to have a broadcasting career. He doesn’t need to have a podcast.

"He can go live on a boat or find a vacation home and stay there," Elliott said. "He’s just passionate about NASCAR. He enjoys the sport.

"He’s been around it long enough that it’s his life. When you do something for that long of a period of time, it’s hard to step away." 

Does Earnhardt ever think about finding a vacation home and going on permanent vacation? He admits that he does.

"My wife, though, and my kids say that’s not happening," he said matter-of-factly.

Besides, while he might have a desire to get away, Earnhardt tries to keep things as normal as possible for his family.

"I’d probably be wandering all over the place, enjoying all kinds of places and things," he said. "[But] we have two little girls that need to be planted and rooted and going to school.

"They’ve got life experiences and things to do and friends to be around and sleepovers to have. My wife has her friends, and we have a great, little circle of folks that we spend a lot of time with where we are. That’s my life. That is who I am today." 

What about tomorrow? JR Motorsports has toyed with the idea of going Cup racing, but that would be a huge commitment. Earnhardt seems open to the podcast evolving, depending on what resonates with fans.

His sister, sitting on the stage following the NASCAR Hall of Fame induction ceremony, couldn’t predict the what — only the how. 

"I don’t know. I wish I had a crystal ball," Earnhardt Miller said. "I know that whatever he does, he’ll do it with a lot of integrity and a lot of respect for the sport.

"Whether it’s broadcast or amping our ownership in a different series or whatever it is, we’re a racing family. That’s our legacy. I know that he wants to continue that legacy for his kids to see it or for others to see it."

Bob Pockrass has spent decades covering motorsports, including the past 30 Daytona 500s. He joined FOX Sports in 2019 following stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram @bobpockrass. Looking for more NASCAR content? Sign up for the FOX Sports NASCAR Newsletter with Bob Pockrass!