Dale Earnhardt Jr. has kept his partnership with Nationwide Insurance running even after stepping away from NASCAR competition in 2017. He continues to promote the company’s products and services meant for financial protection and planning. However, maintaining a sponsorship tie was not the only reason he remained aligned with the company.
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Junior has joined forces with Nationwide Insurance and a local safety organization called BRAKES (Be Responsible and Keep Everyone Safe). BRAKES’ “Focused Driving Rewards” incentivizes teens to reduce phone usage, monitor their driving habits, and earn rewards through the Nationwide app. Even the central message of the program mirrors Dale Jr.’s own: Put the phone down.
The program helps teenage drivers, or future teenage drivers, become more alert behind the wheel. The mission is to get them better prepared to handle difficult scenarios before they escalate into crashes. The initiative specifically targets the reduction of phone-related distractions among teen drivers, one of the biggest concerns for parents.
The BRAKES curriculum spans three hours and is designed for teenagers who already hold a driver’s license or permit. Needless to say, Junior was all in for it, keeping his daughters, Isla and Nicole, even though they have a few years left before hitting their teens.
Dale Jr.’s daughters are only five and seven, but he has already decided that he will ensure that they enroll in the program when the time comes. “Oh, but they’re definitely going to BRAKES when they’re old enough. I’m a worrier by nature,” he said.
The reason Junior is so concerned about teenage driving is that he has personally experienced the setback himself. As a teenager, Dale Jr. wrecked his truck. He described the incident, too.
One Christmas morning, he sat inside his Chevy S-10 pickup, a truck he treasured. He recalled how his sister Kelley had given him an adapter that allowed him to play CDs through the truck’s cassette player, and the update felt revolutionary.
Eager to try it, Junior took the truck for a drive. While glancing down to check his music, he got distracted. He drifted off the road and flipped the vehicle. And eventually, his father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., came to pick him up.
Dale Jr. recalled how fortunate he was to walk away unhurt and how careless he had been as a young driver. It happened three decades ago, before cellphones added another layer of distraction to the roads.
Junior understands now that if a mere CD player can be that big of a distraction, cellphones can be even more dangerous. His crash experience explains why he is personally invested in teaching teenagers to stay focused.
