Dale Earnhardt Jr. reflects on family history at Daytona, making ‘peace’ with the track

24 years ago, Dale Earnhardt Sr. died while racing on the last lap of the Daytona 500. His son, Dale Earnhardt Jr. continues to return to the track. Since his dad’s death, Junior has won two Daytona 500s of his own and has now qualified for the first time as a NASCAR Cup Series team owner.

Despite the tragedy the Earnhardt family experienced at Daytona International Speedway all those years ago, it is not a place Dale Jr. hates. After all, he spent an entire career racing there twice a year and still shows up as an Xfinity Series owner and now Cup owner.

Still, it is hard to not think about that race 24 years ago on a night like tonight. A moment that changed NASCAR forever, and likely led to the emotional embrace between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Justin Allgaier after the Duel race.

In the press conference afterward, Earnhardt was asked about Daytona and what the track means to him.

“I probably need a psychiatrist to describe it, but I’m not — you know, Daddy loved Daytona and loved winning here,” Earnhardt recalled. “He just loved to win any race here. He loved to add to that number, whatever it was, 36 wins.

“Gosh, I loved coming here as a kid, but just a lot of great memories. Then when he passed away, I had to make a decision. I had a career in front of me. I was coming back multiple times, and I had to figure out a way to be okay with it.”

There were only two choices. Embrace Daytona and NASCAR or turn away from it. Thankfully, Dale Earnhardt Jr. chose the former.

“I knew that it wasn’t the track that took him, and I knew that he, wherever he was, still felt the same about Daytona. So I’ve embraced it. Him losing his life in this property brought this property closer to me. Now, that doesn’t work the same for other people and tragedy, but for me knowing I had to keep coming here, I made some peace with it and embraced the track and love it.

“Add on top of that, you know, I’ve loved the history of the sport and add on top of the fact that this is the cornerstone, this is the foundation of the sport between Darlington, here, and a few other tracks, this is really what helped us launch ourselves off of the beach and out of the dirt tracks, the little bull rings, and make us a genuine sport, and all of the historic moments that have happened here and getting to win here myself.”

“I think that I was going to say at some point during this press conference that we should celebrate this track and this race,” Earnhardt continued. “Where else do you go and barely make the field and cry tears of joy? Nowhere. There’s some relief, but this is incredible. I think that’s — that helps you measure the importance of the race and how big it is to me, anyways. Yeah, that’s kind of the way it is for me.

“My kids, on the other hand, just love the MRO and playground part. Isla is always asking me when we’re coming back to Daytona, and I get a little funny feeling inside because I’m like, dang, she likes Daytona. But it’s just the MRO and the playground. It’s a special place. I don’t know. It’s cool.”

Powerful stuff from Dale Earnhardt Jr. This sport has given and taken everything from him in one way or another. To see him still be so poetic about NASCAR and Daytona all these years later is what is truly special.