- 2 years ago
Third-generation NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. is one busy guy. The 15-time consecutive NASCAR most popular driver, Busch Series champ two years in a row, and two-time Daytona 500 winner still races professionally to 'keep himself current.' He is also a champion team owner, an analyst for NBC Sports, a podcast host, the author of three bestselling books, and a brand new children's book, Buster Gets Back on Track , that was just released, to help parents teach kids about not letting their emotions get the better of them. We recently caught up with this mega powerhouse and devoted husband and dad of two at the LifeMinute Studios to hear all about what fuels his winning drive on and off the track.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 Hey, I'm Dale Earnhardt Jr. and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:08 NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. knows a thing or two about keeping heated emotions in check
00:14 behind the wheel.
00:15 And he's parlayed those skills into his latest children's book to help parents teach their
00:19 kids how to control their emotions when things go wrong.
00:22 We caught up with this busy dad of two to hear all about what fuels his winning drive
00:27 on and off the track.
00:29 This is a Life Minute with Dale Earnhardt Jr.
00:32 Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the house.
00:34 Thank you so much for joining us on Life Minute.
00:36 Yeah, I'm glad to be here.
00:38 Not often I get a chance to come up to New York and visit, so it's been a fun morning.
00:42 Tell us about your new book.
00:44 Yeah, so I wrote a few books in my time, but here lately we've been writing children's
00:50 books.
00:51 And the main character in our children's books is Buster.
00:55 Buster's my dad's nickname when he was a little boy.
00:58 And so I thought that would be a great name for a lead character in a children's book.
01:02 And I recently became a father, so that was the inspiration for being curious about writing
01:06 a book.
01:08 Could I write one?
01:09 How fun would that be?
01:10 What would that be like?
01:11 And would my kids like it?
01:12 And those sound like fun challenges to take on.
01:16 And so this is the second installment of Buster's series.
01:20 It's Buster Gets Back on Track is the name of the book.
01:24 And it's a book about managing emotions.
01:28 One of the things, when I became a father, everything's new.
01:31 You learn in everything as a parent.
01:35 And one of the things that sort of surprised me was watching my daughter, Isla, our first
01:42 kid, manage her emotions, having a hard time controlling her emotions, right?
01:49 And getting frustrated by the inability to communicate to us what she was feeling.
01:55 Simple things.
01:56 And this is kind of the driving storyline of the book is Buster managing his emotions.
02:04 He struggles on the racetrack and gets frustrated, and then he finds ways to control that.
02:12 And that's kind of the main message of the book.
02:14 But it's been interesting.
02:17 I will say that when I became a dad, one of the most common gifts that you'll get as a
02:23 parent is books, children's books for your kids, right?
02:25 And so we compiled this big collection of books.
02:28 And it was, I thought we were going to read them all, right?
02:32 But the girls just gravitate toward the specific ones.
02:37 And they will have you read the same book every day for weeks on end, right?
02:42 And I'm thinking, man, I wonder if I can create a book that they want me to read to them.
02:50 And so that was, or, you know, and even if my girls don't connect to Buster, maybe someone
02:56 will.
02:57 Maybe some child will become a fan of Buster.
02:59 And so that's been an incredible experience to watch the feedback from the book.
03:03 That's so great.
03:04 And I understand some of the pictures are a nod to your real life, and obviously some
03:08 of the strategies.
03:09 That's right.
03:10 You can do anything when you're writing a children's book.
03:12 You create the characters yourself.
03:14 You work with an illustrator.
03:16 We chose an incredible illustrator to help us with our book.
03:19 We love the design, the colors, everything about Buster's character.
03:24 And so the car that Buster is, is I basically have this car that my dad raced when he was
03:31 starting his career in the 70s.
03:33 And I said, I would love this car to, you know, Buster in this car to have some consistency
03:38 here.
03:39 And so you can take things in your life or relationships in your life and incorporate
03:47 those into the book.
03:48 And it's been really fun to go and say, hey, this character, go to your friends and say
03:53 this character is you.
03:55 You inspired this particular person in the book.
03:58 And you imagine that they're then going to grab the book and want to read it to see what
04:02 their character does.
04:03 And so that's been really fun for me.
04:05 That's so cool.
04:07 How do you manage everything?
04:08 You know, work and family?
04:10 I have a lot of great people that help me know where I need to be at all times.
04:17 And I trust a lot of people to help me decide what is important and what I need to focus
04:22 on.
04:23 We do a lot of things.
04:24 We're racing cars.
04:25 We're owning race teams.
04:26 We're broadcasting in the broadcast booth for NBC, writing children's books.
04:32 And you just sort of have to balance the time between what you really are passionate about
04:38 and spending enough quality time with your family, right?
04:42 And making sure you're giving them what they need and being with them and making sure you're
04:48 developing those relationships.
04:49 Those girls are so young.
04:50 Isla and Nicole are five and two years old.
04:53 And you want to be in their life every day, every minute, helping them, impacting them.
04:59 But hey, I'm glad to have opportunity.
05:01 I'm thankful.
05:03 And we're managing it well.
05:05 You sure are.
05:06 And you're such a doting father.
05:08 Two beautiful little young girls, like you said.
05:11 I stalked your Insta a little.
05:14 What are some things you learned from your dad about parenting?
05:17 I think that my dad influences me a little bit as a parent.
05:22 And my mom does too.
05:24 My sister, my wife, me and my wife Amy communicate quite a bit about parenting practices, right?
05:30 And we find parenting to be really challenging at times.
05:33 And so we talk about it.
05:35 She says, you know, I think we could have done this in this situation.
05:38 Or I would have preferred you do this in this situation.
05:41 And so we give each other a little feedback from time to time, share our opinions about
05:47 things that we're learning in the world about parenting and things we like that we see other
05:53 parents do.
05:54 And so I think you just got to be malleable.
05:57 You know, you got to be able to go with the flow and change and accept that you're not
06:02 perfect and not worry so much about being imperfect.
06:06 That's probably my problem is that I worry about being imperfect and missteps that I
06:11 make in teaching moments with my kids.
06:14 And I definitely, when I became a dad, I didn't come with this guidebook or I didn't have
06:21 this big toolbox full of information to just be this perfect dad right out of the gate.
06:25 So I certainly in very important teaching moments may have not hit a grand slam.
06:31 But, you know, try not to worry too much about not always, you know, fulfilling or living
06:38 up to this sort of idea that you have as being a father and your kids are going to be fine,
06:44 you know.
06:45 Yeah.
06:46 So great.
06:47 All right.
06:48 Let's talk racing.
06:49 Well, I mentioned I'm a broadcaster for NBC, so I work in the booth.
06:52 I love doing that job.
06:53 I'm at the racetrack.
06:54 I'm going to watch the races anyway.
06:56 So I feel very lucky to be able to have that opportunity.
06:59 And I'm a huge fan of racing and a fan of what I'm watching.
07:03 And I just kind of I be that fan when I'm in the booth.
07:07 And that's working really well for me so far.
07:10 I do love to drive still and I haven't quit driving entirely.
07:13 And I ran a race just this past weekend at Bristol.
07:15 Good one.
07:16 Yeah.
07:17 So I run I run at least once a year, maybe twice a year.
07:20 And it's really out of, you know, I'm a little selfish to that.
07:23 I want to compete and want to get back out there and see if I can still do it.
07:27 But there's also that opportunity to remind myself what a driver is dealing with inside
07:31 the car and thinking about and the processes that a driver goes through mentally throughout
07:35 the race so that when I go in the booth, it's fresh and I can pull from that information
07:39 immediately and quickly.
07:41 And I feel like the further I get removed from my racing career, the harder it is for
07:45 me to be an analyst for our sport.
07:46 So staying in the car keeps me current.
07:49 It's a fresh.
07:50 I do think that.
07:51 And so we had a really good race this past weekend.
07:55 I'm reminded every time I compete how great and talented the other drivers are.
08:00 I think that's helpful to know that like they are great at what they do.
08:05 But I ended up leading some laps.
08:08 We led about 47 laps this past weekend.
08:11 Things were going great.
08:12 We had a little electrical fire that that happened in the car.
08:15 It's a, you know, just kind of odd, rare thing.
08:17 It was a brand new car and it's kind of a new car bug issue that we didn't foresee.
08:23 And luckily I was able to get out with no problems.
08:26 I don't have any injuries or anything, but it was a very touch and go moment there inside
08:31 the car when I look down and the floorboards on fire and I'm like, oh, well, I guess we're
08:36 going to have to stop.
08:38 So luckily I get out.
08:39 We get the car back to the shop.
08:41 We figure out what the problem is.
08:42 We understand how to not have that problem again.
08:46 We'll clean this car up.
08:47 We'll rebuild it and I'll take it back and race it again in a month in Miami.
08:51 So I'm looking forward to that.
08:53 Talk about resilience.
08:55 How do you maintain that, like not freaking out?
08:59 I mean, like, how do you do that?
09:01 You do.
09:02 You do freak out.
09:03 I was in the car, saw a little smoke.
09:06 I'm driving around.
09:07 I'm running really well, running up in the top five and I see a little smoke and I'm
09:10 smelling some things burning and I'm thinking, you know, what could that be?
09:14 I'm trying to figure it out with what limited information I've got.
09:18 And then I felt that pinch of the fire burning my suit and burning me, right?
09:22 It gets hot.
09:23 Getting too close to the fire, getting too close to a campfire.
09:27 And I felt it warm and I looked down and I see a fire.
09:29 I'm like, all right, I don't need to be foolish here.
09:32 This could get really bad if I don't stop.
09:34 So I come down Pit Road and stop, get out.
09:37 Fire marshals handled the fire and I had some burns on the suit, but I was perfectly fine.
09:44 But to be honest with you, in that very quick process, I did freak out.
09:52 Like I was, yeah, I was freaking out.
09:54 I was like, oh my gosh, you know, hopefully this fire doesn't get worse.
09:57 Let me get to the pits quickly.
09:58 Let's get this, let's get this taken care of.
10:00 I mean, I'm just assuming as soon as I pull to a stop, the fire is going to grow really
10:04 quickly because when the car's at speed, there's a lot of air moving around and that can temper
10:08 the fire somewhat.
10:09 And as soon as you stop a burning car, the fire spreads or grows really quickly.
10:14 And so that was my only concern was like getting somewhere fast and getting out of the car
10:19 as quickly as possible.
10:21 Is becoming a dad and having a family changed racing at all for you?
10:25 It has.
10:26 It's a bit of a tug of war, to be honest with you, between not racing and then wanting to
10:33 race so that they know racing.
10:36 And my girls would, if I never drove another race car again, my girls would look at my
10:46 career knowing that that was something that happened before, before they were born and
10:53 not be able to really understand what it was like to experience me as a race car driver.
11:00 And I believe it feels selfish to want to go to the racetrack and race so that your
11:04 kids can experience it.
11:05 Right.
11:06 So they can experience you doing that job when, you know, I'm going to be 49 this year
11:11 and I might as well, you know, I've done everything I wanted to do.
11:14 There's really nothing else for me personally that I would love to achieve.
11:18 And I've been very fortunate and lucky.
11:21 But there's part of me, I'm selfish and I enjoy it and I want to do it and I have fun
11:25 doing it.
11:26 But there's also part of me that wants my kids to experience it and connect that part
11:31 of my life to their reality.
11:35 Right.
11:36 So I was, you know, they can say, I do remember going to the track and dad racing and now
11:39 I can go back and look at pictures of him and really kind of put myself in that, you
11:44 know, that part of his life and maybe understand what that part of his life was like.
11:48 And so I raced for about 20 years before they were born.
11:53 And I will probably race for, I don't know, less, maybe a half a dozen more years at the
11:59 most.
12:00 Good.
12:01 One time a year for them to sort of be able to go to the track and see what that's like.
12:06 Was that what it was like for you when you were little?
12:08 I was in love with racing as a kid, you know, and I thought it was just so grand.
12:13 I couldn't get enough of being at the racetrack and I wanted to explore every inch of the
12:17 facility.
12:18 And me and I had a group of friends, other kids my age, that we, as soon as you got to
12:23 the track, you sought each other out and you just had this, what are we going to do?
12:27 Let's go eat some junk food.
12:29 Let's go, let's go over and look, let's go watch practice from over here.
12:33 Now let's move over here and watch, watch the cars.
12:35 And we wanted to see every vantage point, you know, and, and we walked all over Pit
12:41 Road touching and looking and, and checking all the race cars out.
12:46 And it was a blast as a kid, you know, running up and running up into the haulers and eating
12:53 all the candy.
12:54 And it was really, really a great time.
12:59 And so, yeah, I certainly want my girls to know what it's like to be at a racetrack and
13:04 what, what kind of fun can be had, what kind of enjoyment they can have from being there
13:09 and watching the race.
13:10 What's the biggest tip you've learned, third generation legend, your grandpa, your dad,
13:16 from them about racing?
13:19 I think the one thing that I probably learned from my grandfather and my dad, it's not really
13:24 a lesson that I learned.
13:25 It's more about a mindset.
13:28 They were very driven, motivated, determined.
13:33 The look on their face, you know, when you see images of them, they just have this, they're
13:37 so focused in their, in their gaze, right?
13:40 And so that's how they were mentally at all times.
13:44 When dad was at the racetrack, it was business and he, he was almost, you know, kind of walked
13:53 around with this really sort of stern, determined sort of effort in everything.
14:01 And there were some light moments for sure, but when it, when he climbs into the car,
14:05 he just sort of changed.
14:08 And I feel like that that is motivating for me when I'm behind the wheel of the car.
14:14 I expect a certain performance.
14:17 I expect a certain type of effort out of myself.
14:21 And so yeah, their approach to racing and driving has been an inspiration for me for
14:29 every, every lap I run.
14:31 There's a little bit of pressure that you feel from the outside world, but most of the
14:35 pressure that you feel is what you put on yourself.
14:39 And the Earnhardt name is, is to, is, you know, you feel like a responsible for carrying
14:46 on that legacy and keeping that name to a certain standard.
14:49 Yeah.
14:50 Yeah.
14:51 You sure have.
14:52 Thanks.
14:53 What's your worst pet peeve from other drivers when you're on the track?
14:57 That's a great question.
14:59 That's a good question.
15:00 I think that the worst pet peeve in racing is what they call mirror driving.
15:08 So if you're trying to pass a car and he, you know, generally when I race, I look out
15:15 the windshield and where I'm going 95% of the time.
15:20 Now we have mirrors in the car and one little side mirror right here to look down the side
15:24 of the car.
15:25 You check those from time to time to see where everybody's at and just understand whether
15:30 you're pulling away from the car behind you or he's gaining on you.
15:34 And so when you run down another car and you're catching another driver, you can tell they
15:41 start to look in the mirror more and they're paying less attention to where they're going
15:45 and they're looking in the mirror to see where you are and they're trying to block you.
15:49 Right.
15:50 And that is so frustrating because you run, you run them down, you're faster than they
15:55 are.
15:56 You want, you know, if it's early in the race, you certainly don't want them to make it a
16:00 difficult hard time to get around them, but they can, they can really make it frustrating.
16:04 And when they look in the mirror and you can see them sometimes looking in the mirror,
16:08 you can see their eyes and you can tell they're trying to block you.
16:12 They're going everywhere you are trying to go on the racetrack to keep you behind them.
16:17 And that really can be very frustrating.
16:20 Do you go fast when you're at home?
16:22 What's your home driving like?
16:24 My home driving, so driving on the highway for me has changed over the years.
16:28 I was always going fast when I was younger, in a hurry everywhere I went, speeding down
16:36 the roads and not being very responsible with my driving.
16:41 But I think as you get older, you sort of realize that you don't have to run wide open
16:48 everywhere you go.
16:49 You know, you don't have to hustle and race to every stop.
16:54 And I would always, I'd try to, I have to really work to manage my anxiety or my nerves,
17:02 especially when I'm going somewhere to do something, any kind of work related, you know,
17:08 activity or if I'm rushing to get there, I'm sort of working myself up for no reason, right?
17:13 I'm sort of building up this sort of anxiety and hustle and panics, you know, sort of temperament
17:22 inside me, right?
17:23 And so I've learned to just like take it easy.
17:26 Just when you get there, you get there.
17:28 Everything's going to be fine.
17:29 Okay, if you're a little late, you can apologize.
17:31 No big deal.
17:32 That's so interesting.
17:33 And so, yeah, now I take my time driving.
17:37 Amy, my wife riding with me, she'll tell me.
17:40 We'll get in the road, so driving a car on the highway is like a great time to start
17:43 like catch up on things.
17:45 You never take the time when you're home to sit down and go, "Hey, what's going on with
17:48 you?
17:49 What are you doing?
17:50 What's your plans tomorrow?
17:51 What are the kids doing this weekend?"
17:52 None of those things, right?
17:53 And so when we get in the car and we're driving somewhere, I'm like, "Man, hey, let's talk
17:57 about this, that, and the other.
17:58 What's on your calendar?
17:59 This is what's on my calendar.
18:00 I've got to go do this."
18:02 And I'm just sitting there talking away and she's like, "Hey, can we speed it up a little
18:05 bit?
18:06 You're going like five miles an hour below the speed limit.
18:08 The cars are going by us.
18:09 Can we just get to where we're going?"
18:11 And I'm like, "This is a great time to just catch up.
18:14 Okay, no problem."
18:15 So she's always kind of reminding me that I need to drive a little faster.
18:19 That's so funny.
18:20 I love it.
18:21 And of course, you have an awesome podcast.
18:23 Yes.
18:24 Yeah.
18:25 I love podcasting.
18:26 I love creating content.
18:28 Obviously creating content has like become the thing over the past decade.
18:32 It's really a great way to engage with people and keep people updated on what you're up
18:37 to and what's important to you, what matters to you.
18:40 And it's also helped me in the booth.
18:42 Learning to interview people, becoming a better speaker, articulating better, and I think
18:49 it's helped me in the booth a lot.
18:51 What other hobbies do you do?
18:52 What do you like to do when you're not working?
18:53 I only get to race in a real car once a year, so I do love to jump in a simulator and basically
19:00 for most people it's a video game, but I race online in iRacing, which is a lot of fun.
19:09 iRacing to me is probably the most realistic way to understand what racing a car is like
19:16 from the comforts of your own home.
19:18 And so I do that quite a bit.
19:19 I've worked with that company for about 20 years to try to develop their software and
19:23 get it as realistic as possible, and that's a lot of fun.
19:26 I love being in outdoors.
19:29 Sitting with my girls on a 95 degree day, go down and let them play in the creek and
19:35 sit a lawn chair down on the side of the creek and watch them just play.
19:41 I love the beach.
19:42 We have a house on the coast of the Carolinas that we love to go spend some time sitting
19:46 on the beach and watching the girls enjoy that is amazing.
19:52 I'll be honest with you, my job as a broadcaster is like a hobby.
19:56 It's not a real job to me.
19:58 Like I said, I'm going to watch the races anyways.
20:00 I'm a fan.
20:03 Most of the things that we do on a professional side are fun, passion projects.
20:11 I own a race series called the Cars Tour, which is kind of the grass, it's grassroots
20:15 level racing.
20:18 I'm very passionate about that and that takes up a lot of my free time.
20:23 I've dedicated a lot of my personal time to projects like that.
20:28 That's been great.
20:33 I'm pretty much maxed out.
20:34 I really am.
20:35 I don't know that I can put anything else on the plate.
20:37 I don't want to take anything else away from my family.
20:40 It's kind of where we are right now is I'm in a good place.
20:42 What's your favorite music?
20:44 That's a great question.
20:47 I was talking to a friend of mine last night, a musician, about this.
20:53 I am a big pop punk fan.
20:58 One of my favorite bands is The Dangerous Summer.
21:00 It's a pop punk band from the last decade and a half.
21:04 I listen to a lot of that.
21:05 Country music from any decade, 70s, 80s, 90s, and current.
21:11 Yacht rock.
21:14 All rock really from late 70s to early 80s.
21:17 The stuff that you were listening to riding around in the back of your mom's car.
21:22 All of those songs that connect you to your childhood and immediately take you back to
21:27 the house you lived in or wherever you were spending a lot of time.
21:32 I love nostalgia.
21:36 I love anything that brings back a memory.
21:42 I love that.
21:43 That type of music, rock music and popular rock music from the late 70s and early 80s
21:50 is something that I'm always going to be good with.
21:53 Favorite comfort food?
21:54 My favorite comfort food.
21:57 Anything that has buffalo sauce on it.
21:59 I love buffalo sauce.
22:03 I use it as a dressing on a salad.
22:05 I know, it's crazy.
22:06 I love smoking barbecue.
22:09 So brisket, ribs.
22:11 I love ribs.
22:13 I have to be careful there.
22:15 I love the challenge of smoking barbecue because honestly it's really similar to going and
22:22 racing.
22:23 So you spend days preparing this car, getting it ready, setting it up and tuning the car
22:28 and then you load it up and take it to the racetrack.
22:31 In barbecue, if you're going to do a brisket, you spend almost a whole day prepping the
22:36 brisket before it ever goes on the smoker.
22:39 Do you do that?
22:40 Yes.
22:41 That's kind of the fun part.
22:43 It's silly but you have this toolbox with all the sauces and all the injection and everything
22:48 you're going to do to try to make this brisket great.
22:52 It might be great, just like a race car.
22:53 It might run great, it might not.
22:55 You spend about a day and a half getting this brisket ready and then it goes on the smoker
22:59 and that's like an eight hour process.
23:02 Very casual and fun.
23:04 You can have friends around.
23:06 And then in product, there's this moment where you're about to feed your family or your friends
23:11 where they might not like what they eat.
23:14 You don't know if this brisket is good or not.
23:16 What kind of critics are you going to have when they start eating the meal you made and
23:21 you spent two days on.
23:24 There's some anticipation, much like in racing.
23:27 Awesome.
23:28 How do you decompress?
23:32 When I raced full time, I had so much adrenaline after the race that I wouldn't go to sleep
23:39 until probably two or four o'clock in the morning.
23:41 So I would go home and maybe grab a cold drink and just catch up on the internet or social
23:48 media and watch music videos or whatever.
23:53 Eventually I'd kind of calm down and slow down and I'm ready for bed.
23:58 I'm tired.
23:59 I'm ready to go to bed.
24:00 But for me, my happy place is under an umbrella on the beach next to a cooler with my little
24:12 girls building a sand castle or me burying them in the sand, whichever.
24:18 I'm great.
24:19 You know, and some yacht rock playing on the radio.
24:22 That's perfect for me.
24:23 What's in the cooler?
24:24 What's your favorite cocktail?
24:25 Who has that one?
24:26 Well, I like, we actually have a cocktail me and my wife have been working on called
24:31 High Rock Vodka.
24:32 Something that he forgot to tell us.
24:35 That's been out for a couple years.
24:36 High Rock Vodka, we think it's the best out there.
24:42 We've won a lot of awards.
24:44 They've been taking High Rock across the country in competing competitions and it's been doing
24:49 incredibly well.
24:50 So the product itself is really, really good.
24:53 We're working with a group in Gatlinburg, Tennessee called Sugar Land.
24:56 So they know what they're doing.
24:57 We don't buy it from someone else and bottle it and brand it.
25:00 We make it ourselves in house.
25:02 And so it's incredible.
25:04 And so we've had a lot of fun with that, but either vodka and orange juice.
25:10 My dad's favorite drink was a screwdriver.
25:12 So that was, you know, I can always go with that or a cold beer.
25:16 What's something no one knows about you?
25:19 Well, I always go to this for some reason, but you were asking me about music.
25:25 Me and my sister used to go on these long road trips to visit my mother in Norfolk,
25:29 Virginia.
25:30 She lived up there for about 20 years.
25:31 And so we'd drive the six hours to Norfolk and the best part was Kelly's driving and
25:36 I'm just going through our CD case and playing all these songs, right?
25:42 And I really became a huge Barry Manilow fan on one trip.
25:47 And so it's you and your sister and somebody was asking me the other day, it's like, what
25:52 songs in your library that would be probably one you might be embarrassed about?
25:56 And I don't know that I'm embarrassed about it, but I think people would be surprised
25:58 how much Barry Manilow's in my catalog.
26:02 To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast, Life Minute TV on iTunes and all
26:06 streaming podcast platforms.
26:08 (upbeat music)
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