As a NASCAR Hall of Famer, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has little to regret about how his career unfolded. Even so, there are things he wishes he had done differently. One of them is not taking full advantage of the exemplary teammate environment he was part of.
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Dale Jr. detailed this in a 2019 interview with Joseph Wolkin from Frontstretch. When asked if he could go back in time and change one thing about his career, he responded, “I didn’t really learn how to be a great teammate, a true professional, an asset to my team, and a student of the game.
“I didn’t really learn that throughout the Budweiser years. I had great cars, great teammates, great people, great crews, and great mechanics. I just didn’t take advantage of it.”
The reason Dale Jr. failed to do that was simple. He was a young driver and drunk on popularity. He was sponsored by Budweiser, fans loved him no matter what, and he was the king of the hill. He admitted this and added, “I’ll always wonder if I would’ve been more focused, whether that would’ve mattered. Would that have provided more success? But it’s over and done. There’s nothing I can change.”
Junior drove the No. 8 Budweiser car from his Cup Series debut in 1999 to 2007. He had several notable drivers like Michael Waltrip, Steve Park, and Mark Martin serve as his teammates during this tenure. Had he wanted to, he could have learned a lot from them and potentially secured more accolades. But, as he pointed out, there’s little point in wallowing over what’s done and dusted.
Why Dale Jr. is proud of himself despite zero championships
Dale never managed to win a Cup Series championship, and that will always remain a void on his resume. However, he takes solace in the fact that he has contributed more to the sport than many championship-winning drivers. With Wolkin pointing out that perhaps only Jeff Gordon has done more off the track, Junior was on cloud nine.
Gordon said, “If I can’t be a champion, I hope I was an asset, however, I can be. That’s the best compliment you can give me about my career: that I was an asset. I would love to be a champion. At least at the Cup level, I’ll never get to say I was a champion. I wanted to matter, and I wanted to influence the sport in a great way.”
Championship winner or not, Junior’s influence on NASCAR has been monumental and continues to be so even today, years after his retirement.
