Dale Earnhardt Jr. Details ‘Good Samaritan’ Jeep Crash

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in his fair share of crashes during his NASCAR career. But in a recent interview with TMZ, the retired racing star told a story about the last time he was involved in a crash off the track.

The crash took place in January in the Piedmont region of North Carolina while a few inches of snow were on the ground. Earnhardt stoppedon a drive to help pull a fellow driver’s car back onto the road, but wound up hitting a pine tree with his own car.

“I ran into a pine tree with my Jeep in the winter time. I was going through the snow,” Earnhardt recalled. “I had just pulled a guy out of a ditch, drove down the road about two miles and then I hit a tree.”

“Yeah, I was probably going too fast,” he admitted.

Earnhardt told fans about the crash at the time with a Twitter photo, assuring people he was okay.

“NC stay off the roads today/tonight,” Earnhardt said. “5 minutes after helping these folks I center punched a pine tree. All good. Probably just needs a new alignment.”

While in New York City, Earnhardt opened up about losing his father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., back in 2001 in a devastating crash. The accident took place at the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18, 2001, where the NASCAR Champion collided head on with the outside wall after making contact with Sterling Marlin’s car.

Earnhardt recalled the fateful day in an interview with Megyn Kelly.

“Yeah I was in that race,” Earnhardt said. “We had competed together for an entire season. It was a dream come true to be able to race for my dad, I was driving a car that he owned, but also to be able to compete with him on the same track.”

Earnhardt commemorated his father on the 17th anniversary of his passing back in February.

“Honesty I don’t even think about it when the anniversary of dads (sic) passing comes annually. He lived so hard and fast,” he wrote on Twitter. “His life was so grand, the date never registers with me for some reason. But I see the comments in my timeline and they are appreciated.”

He served as the Grand Marshal for the 2018 Daytona 500, and opened up about his feelings towards the track in an interview with USA TODAY‘s For the Win.

“When he passed away here, I had two choices: I could hate this place for it, or it could become even more special to me and I could become even more connected to it because of that circumstance,” he said. “So I chose to embrace the track more. I knew how special this place was to my dad, so it’s more meaningful to me personally, maybe, than to a lot of the other competitors as a cornerstone of our series and the birth place of speed and all the things — The Great American Race.”