Dale Earnhardt Jr. Gives Explanation Behind Shocking Moment With Father Early in His Life: “I Panicked”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his father, Dale Earnhardt, did not have the most peaceful relationship initially. The Intimidator was quite a strict dad and expected a military-style discipline from his son. This led to a lot of misunderstandings between the two. One such misunderstanding nearly led to Junior never taking up the race wheel.

Earnhardt is the latest documentary to delve deep into Dale Earnhardt’s life and career. It will be released on Prime Video beginning May 22. Junior and his sister, Kelley, appeared in an interview with Kelly Crandall to promote the documentary. They spoke about one particular incident, which showcased how far away Earnhardt had been mentally from his son.

Believing that Junior wanted to go to art school, Earnhardt and Teresa, Junior’s stepmother, had once gifted him a large box of expensive art supplies. Junior was taken aback by the gesture, as he had always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a race car driver. The issue was that he was unable to convey this to his old man.

He said, “I panicked. Like, ‘Oh my god. I’m not going to be a race car driver.’ It was a very shocking few minutes where I just couldn’t believe that this is what they thought I would want to do.” He explained that the reason he felt so shocked was that racing still felt out of reach, and he didn’t know how to ask for help.

He added, “I would rarely have opportunities with Dad where I could say, ‘Hey, Dad. How do I start? What do I do?’ We didn’t have any real conversation about it. I guess he truly didn’t know how I felt about racing or driving. Or how badly I wanted to do it.” When Junior finally made it into racing, Earnhardt couldn’t have been prouder.

How racing brought the father and son closer together

In a 2023 conversation with Graham Bensinger, Junior had spoken about how he got into racing only to get the attention of his father. Earnhardt had never gone to one of Junior’s soccer games or his high school graduation. But when he started winning races, he suddenly wanted to know how the race day had gone.

Junior said, “I didn’t have any real athletic attributes to bring home a trophy for any kind of sports in school. Finally, when I started racing and won a couple of races, I noticed we would talk about it. He’d come into the shop and want to know what happened. So I got more and more into, ‘Hey! I want to do racing because it gets me closer to Dad.’”

Their journey from distance to connection forms one of the most powerful emotional arcs in the Earnhardt documentary.