Dale Earnhardt Jr. is the accidental historian of NASCAR

Since entering the media and podcast space, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has followed his passion for NASCAR to new places. With his interviews of current and former members of the racing community, drivers, crew chiefs, crew members, mechanics, team owners, and more, he has created an archive of the sport.

The latest example of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s historian credentials are coming up in the Earnhardt documentary. Fans will be able to consume that content soon as it launches on Amazon’s Prime Video on Memorial Day Weekend.

If you ask Dale Jr., and I did, if he thinks of himself as a historian, he will disagree. To him, the interviews and podcasts and this documentary are all a byproduct of his NASCAR passion. That doesn’t take away the legitimate historical value of his work, though. At least this history major doesn’t think so.

“It’s the byproduct. So, I don’t intentionally try to be a historian, and I would say there’s probably some giant gaps of things in the sport that I don’t know well,” Earnhardt said in a media availability previewing Earnhardt. “I’m not on the level of Mike Joy or somebody like that, but I think it’s just a byproduct of the passion. There’s pockets of the sport that I truly just love and want to know more about and I think that’s what that kind of comes from.”

If Dale Earnhardt Jr. won’t call himself a historian, I will. He is one of the best examples of a “public historian” meaning his work isn’t academic, but rather for the general public to consume. I have no doubt when Earnhardt is Mike Joy’s age, he will be seen in the same light as far as his knowledge of the sport goes.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues to grow oral history archive

Perhaps the most impressive historical work that Dale Jr. has done is his Becoming Earnhardt miniseries. The story of how his dad, Dale Earnhardt, became the driver and man that generations of race fans fell in love with and continue to fall in love with his story.

Media in general eventually become history. Newspapers, documentaries, online articles, podcasts, and more. But the effort that Dale Earnhardt Jr. puts into his work is on another level, truly. He knows the right questions to ask, who to talk to, and how to put it all into a historical context.

History isn’t just research papers and books. It is a record of human activity. That can be written, recorded with photography or video, or done orally, which is one of the best ways to get primary source accounts. As far as oral history goes in motorsports, Earnhardt’s Dale Jr. Download is second-to-none.

Dale Jr. might be following his passion, but the value it provides to the sport is priceless. There are few, if any, others doing the kind of work he does on a regular basis. Thanks to Earnhardt and his work, NASCAR fans not only have more content to enjoy but more information to take in.

The appreciation that Dale Earnhardt Jr. has for the sport and its history speaks for itself. He doesn’t interview crew members from 30 years ago to make headlines. He does it to hear the stories he wants to hear and, thankfully, records them for all of us to hear, too.