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“Because I Love to..”: Dale Earnhardt Jr’s Weird Reason For This Unnatural “Love” In NASCAR Was Revealed to NFL Veteran in 2021

Published 12/27/2022, 9:30 AM EST

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We all know Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a fantastic and revered NASCAR career. He didn’t win a championship, as he may have wanted. But nonetheless, he was amazing on the track. Around a year ago, Junior sat down with Brandon Marshall, Channing Crowder, Chad Johnson, and Fred Taylor. During their interview, Junior took his time to explain why he preferred to qualify in the back.

NASCAR is a sport where qualifying in the front does not guarantee a win, unlike other forms of racing. In this sport, a person starting in the back has just as much chance to bag a win as a guy up front has. At the end of the day, it’s about how smart you are on the track and how well your strategy goes on. With the right things in place, winning is possible from wherever one decides to start.

During the episode, Junior said, “Sometimes I even like qualifying back there because I love to move forward. I never really loved qualifying on the front row because you got all those guys behind you. The pressure, right? You feel that energy. They chasing you, man, and you got to keep them there. You start there, so you got to keep them there the whole time. You got to keep them behind you the whole time. When you start in the back, you get to enjoy sort of working your way toward the front.”

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Junior’s principal argument was that if he started in the back, he would get more opportunities to fight his way to the top. Moreover, it would also take away the pressure one has to start ahead of everyone.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his amazing career

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Much of Junior’s success came with his ability to win races during the restrictor plate era. Moreover, he was fantastic at it. Unlike others who struggled, Junior would manage to capitalize on it and sail to victory.

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Throughout his career, he earned several most popular driver awards and countless victories and other achievements. However, if there was one thing he would have enjoyed the most was a championship title win. But that never came by in his long career. Even today, years after his retirement, he still remains as of the most popular drivers.

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Furthermore, after his racing days came to a close, Junior started his own media company, Dirty Mo Media. Through the company, he runs a podcast, while also hosting several other podcasts as well. Junior has also been a successful team owner, with JR Motorsports. Even if he did not win a championship as a driver, he has won a few of them as a team owner. As of this year, he briefly returned to the racing world, after stepping into a late-model car at North Wilkesboro. Even after all these years, Junior proved that he still has it in him.

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Written by:

Srijan Mandal

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Srijan Mandal is a NASCAR author at EssentiallySports. He is currently pursuing his Master’s in Journalism and has been writing for his own blog as well, covering NASCAR, F1, F2, W Series, MotoGP, DTM, IndyCar, WRC, and WEC. Following motorsports for more than a decade, he has become a devout supporter of McLaren Racing, Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Bubba Wallace, Sir Lewis Hamilton, and Ayrton Senna.
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Edited by:

Akash Pandhare