Dale Earnhardt Jr. has frequently spoken of his relationship with his father, recounting how it was initially strained due to Dale Earnhardt’s limited time at home, often consumed by racing or garage work. Over time, however, their bond strengthened, especially after Dale Jr. joined NASCAR. In contrast, Kelley Earnhardt Miller’s relationship with her father has rarely been highlighted until now.
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The new docuseries Earnhardt delves deep into the personal side of the family, offering rare glimpses of Kelley’s experiences. During a joint appearance on Entertainment Tonight to promote the series, Kelley and Dale Jr. addressed her past tensions with their father.
When asked about the distance that had developed between them and their period of silence, Kelley candidly explained, “We had a rough many months, and the last time I had talked to him was about three weeks prior to that. I had a newborn baby, so we were interacting back and forth. I had a five-month-old.”
She recalled being at her grandmother’s house watching the race when Dale Sr.‘s accident happened, which added another heartache as she was there with her child. She received a call from her uncle, seeking clarity about the situation, but Kelley found herself in complete shock, unsure how to react.
The fact that she never had a chance to ask her father questions or mend fences before his death made the experience even more painful. Still, she found a measure of solace, reflecting, “You figure it out and we move on and continue pushing forward.”
Dale Jr. relives the moment he learned that Senior had died
In his interview with Entertainment Tonight, Dale Earnhardt Jr. recounted the moment he realized his father, Dale Sr., had passed away at just 49 years old, saying the truth struck him immediately. He narrated that watching the crash unfold in his rearview mirror, he said he had an instinctive sense that something bad had happened to his father.
After the incident, with Dale Sr. being placed into the ambulance and taken to the hospital, Junior recounted driving back around the track toward the pits. As he passed the scene of the accident, he sensed something was gravely wrong.
Drawing from his understanding of the protocol — how wreckers, ambulances, and track personnel respond to crashes, he recognized that this was no ordinary situation.
