“It Just Didn’t Work Out”: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Makes Big Admission About Taking a Year Off from NASCAR Broadcast Duties

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s career in NASCAR now is arguably even busier than it was during his time behind the wheel of a car. Heading an Xfinity Series team and looking over the CARS Tour series while broadcasting on various platforms in various capacities leaves him with no time for himself.

Junior’s broadcasting career began with NBC Sports after his official retirement from the Cup Series in 2017. He called races from the booth while giving fans some of the most iconic calls of all time, such as the ‘Slide Job’ call at Chicagoland in 2018. But in 2024, he put a hold on his race broadcasting duties altogether.

While Dale Jr. did continue to scratch the itch to some extent on his Dirty Mo Media productions, mainly with podcasts surrounding the sport, a full-time gig on live TV was missing last year. And Junior did not enjoy his time off, going by his words.

“I didn’t want to take a year off, but it just didn’t work out, and so I’ve missed it. I’ve missed it a lot,” said Dale Jr. on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast.

Come the 2025 racing season, with NASCAR’s new TV deal that includes several broadcasting partners ranging from Fox Sports to Amazon Prime, Junior will also be seen transitioning from NBC to Amazon Prime. The two-time Daytona 500 winner talked about this switch and also what it felt like after quitting broadcasting for a major network, even if it was just for a year.

Junior stated that not being in the broadcast booth for the past season made him feel rusty going into rehearsals at Kansas this past weekend. “We were at the NASCAR building using your [Fox Sports’] feed to do [a] rehearsal of sorts, just practice and play… I was really nervous,” he said.

“If you don’t do it every day, and you’re not in there in the grind, you can kind of, it’s like golf, if you don’t swing a club all the time, you might not be as good the next time you try to go out and do it. But we had a little practice run, [and] felt awesome. It reminded me how fun it is. My excitement level is through the roof,” added Junior.

He will return to the broadcast booth on Memorial Day weekend for the Coca-Cola 600. With the added excitement from Junior’s side on how Amazon Prime has “a lot of fresh ideas” on how to broadcast stock car racing, the upcoming races seem full of promise for viewers.