Dale Earnhardt Jr. will make his only NASCAR start of the season on Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway. It might be the final time he appears behind the wheel of a NASCAR national touring series car altogether.
Earnhardt, the two-time Daytona 500 winner, 15-time most popular driver award winner and 26-time winner at the highest level, has made one-to-two starts in the Xfinity Series every year since stepping away from full-time racing.
Most of those starts have come with the support of Unilever Hellmann’s and has come at some of his favorite southern tracks in Richmond, Darlington, Martinsville, Homestead-Miami and Bristol. He led the most laps at Bristol last year before a compartment fire ended his run in the closing laps.
Earnhardt likes to race for several reasons.
He enjoys it. He still likes the competitive feelings. He says it makes his a better broadcaster for NBC Sports and now Turner and Amazon starting next year. He likes to evaluate his own equipment at JR Motorsports.
However, Earnhardt will also turn 50 on October 10, and he knows he can’t hang with prime of their career NASCAR drivers forever but also looks forward to these one-offs because it takes him back to his childhood and formative years too.
Earnhardt said going to the race track was his amusement park visit, Six Flags and Busch Gardens, and that this is what he has always looked forward to, especially Bristol. He recited childhood memories watching Bristol races with Brad Means, the son of Jimmy Means, sitting on the hill overlooking Turn 2 before they paved everything in the infield.
“I just really enjoy coming here,” Earnhardt said during his media center visit on Friday afternoon. “Hellmann’s dictates where we’re going to race to a point and they want to work in the southeast market with their marketing strategy.
“So that kind of limits where we can race. And you’ve seen us over the last four years focus on racing in the Southeast, and that’s kind of the reason behind that.”
Earnhardt is bringing the exact same car he nearly won with a year ago and it hasn’t been touched since getting a post-race refresh.
“They took it home, tore it apart and put it back together and nobody’s driven it since then,” Earnhardt said. “So, I hope it drives as good as it did last year.”
Unlike last year, Earnhardt is locked into the race so the pressure is off before the race. He just wants to run all the laps, and whatever happens, happens.
“It should be a fun experience,” Earnhardt said. “And hopefully at the end of the day we’ve ran all the laps. If I just run all the laps, I’m happy.
“I don’t really look at results as much anymore. I would be happy about a great result for sure, but being that I only get to go to ice cream store once a year, you want to eat the whole thing, right? I want to run all the laps and see the checkered flag and I’ll be happy about that.”
So is this the last time Earnhardt plans to stop by the ice cream shoppe?
“Well, I’m not planning on racing next year,” Earnhardt said. “I’ll be foolish to say I’m never going to run again because I don’t know well enough to stay away from it but I’ll probably miss it next year and be absolutely willing to sign up for anything that’s beneficial to JR Motorsports.”
Earnhardt emphasized the relationship with Unilever Hellmann’s and how much that partnership helps his race team
“It’s helped fill out our cars,” Earnhardt said. “I don’t have a requirement to run next year so I may just not do it. And you know, I will probably terribly regret that I didn’t race and you’ll probably find me somewhere competing in 2026 somewhere in the Xfinity Series.
“But right now, I don’t have any plans and that’s kind of the way I like it. If a partner comes together with a package that helps one of the other cars fill out multiple races, and I’m on board with doing a race for that reason alone, I’m not against it.”
But for now, Hellmann’s is back for 2025 but they are not requiring Earnhardt to race, so it’s allowing the veteran racer to focus on his new TV duties at Turner and Amazon Prime Video. Earnhardt also hopes to race his Late Model Stock Car for five-plus races next season too.
He wants to race that car throughout the next decade so he’s not done racing altogether.
“I only got a handful of these years left to be relatively somewhat competitive but I’m going to be fine,” Earnhardt said. “Driving the Late Model Stock Car, that’s one of the things that I’m enjoying right now too, going to these grassroots race tracks and having a good time.
“I love driving those race cars all the same and I’m going to continue doing that as well.”
And again, Earnhardt has an incredibly busy slate next year between the race car, TV obligations and running a touring Late Model series in the CARS Tour alongside Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton and Justin Marks.
“That’s a probably another good reason not to race,” Earnhardt said. “I really, really loved working with NBC and I miss it terribly. I miss them. “We had so much fun and it’s everyone there from Sam (Flood) all the way down, just really great people.”
Earnhardt has just 10 races between Turner and Amazon next summer and that’s different from the 20 races at the end of the year he had with NBC.
“We want to hit the ground running in that first race and have a good product right away is going to be important to me,” Earnhardt said. “I want to devote a lot of time and the appropriate bandwidth to that. So that means trying to dial back some of the hobbies to make sure that we’re good when we get back in the booth and feeling comfortable about that.”