Two-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a visceral reaction as a kid when his dad, the late Dale Earnhardt, would lose a NASCAR race.
"As a little boy, I cried a few times when Dad had some bad runs," Earnhardt Jr., 48, said while visiting Studio 1A and the 3rd Hour of TODAY on Thursday, Sept. 21.
The NBC Sports NASCAR analyst recently shared that sweet childhood memory with his 5-year-old daughter, Isla Rose, who was equally upset when her father failed to win the Xfinity Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee on Sept. 15.
"We had a little electrical issue that created a fire inside the car and the floorboard of the car. I was hoping it might go out, but it started to get a little bit painful," Earnhardt Jr. explained.
At that point, Earnhardt Jr. was forced to exit his car and did not complete the race.
"(Isla) was sad that we didn't win the race," Earnhardt Jr. said of his daughter's reaction to the disappointing outcome. "I understood what she was going through."
"I understood what she was going through."
Earnhardt Jr. on his daughter's reaction to seeing him lose a race
Earnhardt Jr.'s father, Dale Earnhardt, was a prolific NASCAR driver, winning 76 races in the Winston Cup Series from 1979 to 2000.
On Feb. 18, 2001, Earnhardt was killed in a final-lap collision in the Daytona 500.
Six months after his father's death, Earnhardt Jr. returned to the track where his father was killed, telling NBC Sports: "I knew if I wanted to race I was coming back to Daytona many, many more times, so I needed to fix it to where me and this track could co-exist.
"I wasn’t afraid of anything,” he added. “I just felt like I was invincible.”
In a driving move that mimicked his late father, Earnhardt Jr. rocketed from sixth to first and won the race that day.
"I thought about all the people that this was going to help. I can’t say that it gave everyone closure, but I can say that that moment made them happy. We could all smile and laugh and enjoy something good," he told NBC Sports about the emotional victory.
“I think the energy that I got from the fans in that moment was of relief and release — being freed from that sadness and that loss," he continued. "It was OK to be happy.”
Now Earnhardt Jr. only races once a year, he says, to continue to remember "all the things that a driver goes through (and) thinks about" so he can be a better analyst.
"I think that really helps me," he told the 3rd Hour of TODAY co-hosts. "Obviously, I'm selfish and I'm spoiled a little bit and I don't want to quit racing. But doing one a year is very helpful for me in the booth as well."
In addition to racing and providing NASCAR analysis and commentary, Earnhardt Jr. is the proud father of two girls — Isla Rose, 5, and soon-to-be 3-year-old Nicole Lorraine.
Earnhardt Jr. says Isla is just now starting to understand what her father does for a living.
"She now realizes that when I get in the car and she's watching the race that I'm actually in the car out there on the track," Earnhardt Jr. said. "For the first few years we were taking her to the race track and her seeing and watching this one event she's like: 'OK, I saw him get in the car' but she couldn't connect it — me being out on the race track and competing. She didn't really know what all that meant, but now she gets it."
Earnhardt Jr. has just written his second children's book called “Buster Gets Back on Track” — a nod to his late father.
"I was interested in the challenge of writing (a children's book) and 'Buster' is a unique character — that's my dad's nickname," Earnhardt Jr. explained. "The car that Buster is, his character, is derived from a car that my father raced in the '70s at a local racetrack.
"That was really an unexpected, fun part of the project — weaving in your own personal life into the characters and so forth," he added. "And then telling the people that are in your life: 'Hey, this is you.'"
