Earnhardt: A ‘complicated uncomplicated’ guy

As a torrent of sponsors and events swirl around him, Junior tries to keep his focus on racing

Dale Earnhardt Jr. enters Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 looking for his first points-race victory at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, located a few miles from where he grew up and lives.

Much has been written about his move from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Hendrick Motorsports. Now 33, he continues to try to make his mark in a sport his father, seven-time Cup champion Dale Earnhardt, helped define.

On Saturday afternoon, a few hours before he competed in the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race, he talked with Charlotte Observer motorsports writer David Poole about how he’s doing, who he might be once his driving days are done and what the world might be like when he gets there:

QUESTION: In a conversation recently with Lowe’s Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler, he said you are the most “complicated uncomplicated guy” he knows of. What he meant by that was you’re a guy who has a fairly complicated life, and with all you have to do and where you have to go, you’ve managed to keep — as close as anybody could — things relatively simple. Is that a fair assessment?

ANSWER: I don’t really know how to explain it, but I will try my best.

With everything that has happened to me, with my dad — even before his death and how complicated that relationship was — going through his death and through the last several years with DEI and the move to Rick’s (Hendrick Motorsports), it seems that a lot of things that have happened to me have come out of left field. Just unforeseen. I guess to keep from going insane and to keep from asking yourself a million questions. ...

Q: The “why me” questions?

A: Yeah. You just kind of go with it and go with the flow. You definitely make the best of the situation, but that’s pretty easy because most of my situations have been pretty good.

But, yeah, I’ve wondered a lot of times why Daddy had to die, why such a great man had to go away and had to leave. Then you get to the team change and you wonder, ‘Why am I even in this situation? Why do I have to have this responsibility?’ I don’t even want the responsibility of making this decision yet, but I have to make it and I have to take what comes with it.

With all of that going on, you have to show up every week in front of everybody. Nobody really comes out and says what they feel about it, so you sit there and go through the garage and wonder about what everybody’s perception of you is. Then I have my sister and my company on its own accord trying to do good things. Those things take time out of my schedule, too.

Half of me goes, ‘Man, I just want to shut everything down that’s not necessary and just concentrate on driving the car, just like it was when I first got here.’ But the other part of you looks at other athletes and other people in similar situations with those type of opportunities, you always hear the phrase ‘Ride the bull while it’s bucking.’ Something tells me that if I don’t get involved in the things that make my life more complicated, if I don’t do a lot of these things, I might turn around at 50 and go, ‘Man, I am bored. Why didn’t I do some of those things I could have done? Life could have been more fun, more intricate and more complex. Here I am at 50 with really not enough to keep my hands full.’

Q: Most of the people who are really close to you are people you’ve known for a long, long time. That’s true for a lot of people, I suppose, but do you find it hard to let new people in?

A: I have to spend a couple years with a person, constantly being around them, for it to get to where I want them be around and let them know the real personal stuff about me. With the way things are now, I don’t have many opportunities to do that — nor do I necessarily want it. The people I know and the people I trust are people I’ve known a long time. I don’t see myself building those type of relationships with any regularity over the next several years.

The thing about the people I do know and who I am close with is they don’t hover over me or pry into everything I am doing or sit around waiting for things to happen. They know me well enough to know that it’s not a bed of roses. ...The relationships I have were built from being around each other for years. You get that and it’s all you need.

Q: When I hear you say that, though, one thing I think of almost immediately is that you’re single. I imagine finding that right person would be extremely complicated. Do you find yourself worrying about that?

A: I know it’s more difficult. I don’t worry about it, but I know it’s real complicated. I am not the best at relationships. When it comes to relationships, I am pretty selfish about doing what I want to do. I am just selfish about it.

Q: What’s the most fun you’ve had in one day outside of a race car?

A: I’ve got 70 acres over at my house, with a lot of trails. ... It’s all wooded area. Riding the four-wheeler through there is just so much fun for me. I don’t know why. It’s about as disconnected as I can get without leaving town. I get away from everything that’s going on. I enjoy that a lot. We have a little campground we’ve built there and I enjoy that. I like going out on the lake in my houseboat. Those are the fun things for me.

Q: You went to Australia last winter. That’s pretty disconnected.

A: I wouldn’t say my trip to Australia was as much fun as being on the houseboat, because we’d party all night and the next day you felt it all day. So you can’t say that was the most fun day even if the party was fun.

Q: I know you’re on the Internet a lot and you have to see things and read things about you and your life and your career that are downright ugly. The only time I’ve seen you get really mad about things, though, is when it’s about somebody else you don’t feel is being treated right, maybe somebody in the family. I can’t imagine some of the things you see about yourself, but that doesn’t seem to get you all fired up.

A. Some things hurt your feelings, but I don’t get angry. When I read things about my dad that are wrong, or if I feel somebody is unfairly attacking Teresa (Earnhardt, his stepmother) or Taylor or Kelley (his sisters), especially, you have to voice your opinion. They don’t have the platform to do it. I am their best defense.

Q: Sometimes a guy might not get credit or accolades for being a driver because he’s got some other role. A Jeff Burton, for instance, might not get credit for finishing all of the laps so far this year because he’s so good at talking about issues in the sport. That pigeonhole that people do to you is ‘most popular.’ I would think you want to be known for being a heck of a driver as much as you do for having a lot of fans.

A: I wouldn’t trade that away, right now. I believe I will eventually get credit for my talent as a driver. So I would be foolish to make that trade — I’ve made a lot of fool’s trades, and that would be another one.

Q: You mentioned your father, and this is probably a ridiculous question to ask because it’s so hard to do, but if you hadn’t had such a strong influence like him to model yourself after, are there people in the sport you admire and would have maybe taken from as you got into NASCAR?

A: Cale Yarborough. I have always admired his style in and out of the race car. I felt like he was fair and did it right. He never let anybody get the best of him.

Dale Jarrett, more recently, was always a high-road type of guy with a lot of respect from a lot of different people. He handles everything the way it seems you should handle everything.

Bobby Labonte, too. You know, Bobby is a little bit more of an introvert and not many people know his true personality. He is a really unique, funny guy with a lot of determination and a lot of will.

Q: You’re ranked fairly high on most lists of the most powerful people in the sport, but you’ve said before you don’t think your popularity really translates well into actual power.

A: I think that on the surface it appears there is a lot of power there. But when you get down into the engine room and you’re pulling levers and trying to make something happen, it’s not quite as easy and there’s not quite as much influence.

If I went into the office and told Mike Helton (NASCAR president) an opinion about the car of tomorrow or a certain race track or whatever, I think that’d be judged equally with just about any other driver.

Q: Some drivers act like they’re not even aware there is a world beyond the walls of the race track sometimes. Do you have, for lack of a better word, a “world view?” Do you care about politics? What’s your take on all that goes on around us in this world?

A: I think that’s something that’s different about me. I do try really hard to stay up on current events. I watch the Military Channel and the History Channel, stuff like that. I am interested in and following the presidential race and trying to understand it. I don’t pretend to know anything about it, but I try to understand what we’re trying to accomplish and what’s best for us, what our problems are and how we can fix them.

For some reason, I feel like it’s more important than it used to be. It’s real easy to think, ‘All I’ve got to do is take care of what I have to take care of and make sure my life is good and take care of my family.’ But I think it’s important not to caught blinded and not to be sucker-punched.