In 2017, when Dale Earnhardt Jr. was on the cusp of retirement, he began delving into other sports to see what spiked his interest. Through the intervention of avid cyclist and teammate Jimmie Johnson, cycling became something that the icon decided to try out. But unlike pressing the gas, pedaling struck the Hall of Famer odd and caused former professional cyclist Lance Armstrong to take a jab at him publicly.
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7X Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson had received a message from Armstrong after a picture of Junior wearing tight spandex and low socks during a cycling session went up on social media. The cycling legend had texted, “Your boy gotta get some taller (expletive) socks”. As Johnson forwarded the message to his teammate, Junior laughed at it and provided his show size for Armstrong to send him some free goods.
The conversation that transpired between the two with Johnson as an intermediary ended up being too funny for the cycling legend to not post on his own social media account. He posted a screenshot of the exchange and wrote, “So I see this tweet from @dalejr and he’s whinin’ about having to wear spandex since he’s taken up #cycling recently. Then I spot these super low socks he’s rockin’ and I’m like, “cmon bro”.
Though Junior took Armstrong’s move in sportily, he did learn a crucial lesson. He replied to Brad Keselowski in a different tweet, “I don’t know much [About cycling]. Except cycling is expensive, short socks are bad, and @lancearmstrong will Gram your text in a New York minute.”
In just a few days since then, Junior would get a chance to end the debate by finding a picture of Armstrong cycling with no socks on. He posted the same on his Instagram and wrote, “@lancearmstrong says no short socks in cycling! But what is this? Have you changed your tune? Photo credit @jimmiejohnson”.
When Jimmie Johnson and Lance Armstrong kept the ball rolling with late-night calls to Junior
The initial conversations between the trio led to a budding friendship that reached late-night drunk calls just about a year later. Earnhardt Jr. had just retired after the 2017 season when a tweet came from Johnson apologizing to him for the many FaceTime calls during one night. With Junior not answering the calls, Armstrong and Johnson had reached out to country singer Willie Nelson instead.
Responding to a fan’s question about whether Nelson and Junior were together at the time, Johnson responded that the former was in Hawaii and the latter in Charlotte, trying to get some sleep.
