Dale Earnhardt Jr. Reveals If He Would Return to Compete in NASCAR Races (Exclusive)

Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired from full-time racing after the 2017 season. But is he looking into competing in more races in the future? PopCulture.com recently talked to the NASCAR legend about his docuseries Lost Speedways. He was asked if he misses racing full-time since he’s doing a show about abandoned race tracks.

“I don’t know if the show really has much of an effect on that,” Earnhardt told PopCulture. “I think that I certainly miss it now, and I don’t know whether it would be good for me to go back and try to do more or not. I’m afraid that if I tried to go back and do more, I’d be reminded of all the reasons why I stopped.

“I always use this analogy, and maybe it’s a good one, maybe it isn’t, but say you were in a relationship with another person and the relationship ends for whatever reason and there were things about that relationship you didn’t like. And then you go six months or a year down the road or whatever, and you go man, maybe I made a mistake, maybe I need to give that another shot. And you go and you give it another shot, and within days or a week, you’re like oh no, I remember why I’m not in this relationship.”

Earnhardt’s most previous race came in 2020, coming in fifth at the Hooters 250. He has nothing to prove as he’s a two-time winner of the Daytona 500 and 15-time winner of NASCAR’s most popular driver. If Earnhardt doesn’t compete in more races in the future, he has plenty of projects that keep him close to the action.

“Me missing it, that little bit of me missing it, I use that,” Earnhardt said. “I use that in the booth when I’m working the broadcast. I use it for energy and I’m a fan up there. I really love what I’m seeing. I want to be in the race car with those guys. I want to be in that battle that I’m watching or talking about. So I use that a little bit, I think, as a positive to help me do a good job as a broadcaster.” Earnhardt is also getting ready for Lost Speedways as the second season begins streaming on Thursday, July 1.

When asked about the biggest thing that stands out with Season 2, Earnhardt said: “The quality of production and we really kind of got our feet wet and were learning as we went last year, plus things were a little challenging with COVID and all that. I was doing a new show, I had this idea and I was a little bit nervous about whether it would transition to TV really well. It sounds like a great idea to me, but does anybody else care about this? Will this be interesting to anyone else? And is it TV-worthy?”