The best things that happen are often the ones that aren’t planned—just like the time when NASCAR got its invaluable gem, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Considering his exceptional driving skills and passion for the sport, it’s hard to believe that not many expected the JR Motorsports owner to become a serious race car driver.

In a July 2019 episode of the Scene Vault podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr made some shocking admissions about his initial years in racing. During the conversation, the host asked Dale Jr about his “grand scheme” during his earlier driving days. Furthermore, he asked if Dale Jr had thought about participating in the Busch Series and then moving up to the Cup Series at a later point.

To this, the Daytona 500 champion instantly replied, “I had no plans.” Furthermore, he explained, “Dad and I didn’t talk about Xfinity. There was never mention of what we would do beyond that if things went well.”

However, to be fair enough, Earnhardt Jr was still young back then. While talking about driving alongside his siblings, Dale said, “I don’t know that there was a lot of expectations on our success in the late model ranks, between me, Kelly, or Kerry. And I think that’s why Kelly is often considered by a lot of people as the better of the three at that time.”

Kelly didn’t think that Dale Earnhardt Jr could ever be a race car driver

Reminiscing how his sister’s success was a bit surprising, Dale Jr revealed that Kelly Earnhardt had no real driving experience. He divulged that his sister borrowed his and their brother Kerry’s cars—the ones that had already been damaged and rebuilt multiple times.

Explaining how his sister did a commendable job, Dale Jr said, “So, she ran that a few times, and jumped right into late models. And she would run 4th 5th to 10th at track county against really good people. You know, really competitive cars.”

During the interview, Dale Earnhardt Jr talked about how his brother Kerry was having a hard time finishing the races while his sister was running late models. Moreover, he was not winning a lot of races that he was running at Myrtle Beach. However, it was right then that things began changing for him.

He revealed, “So, it was just an opportunity. Dad got a partnership from Mom & Pops’ and we got a chance to go race. And I would think that anybody thought what would come of it, right?”

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He shared that a lot of people, including his sister Kelly, didn’t have high hopes for him, saying, “We didn’t have a whole lot of people that had a lot of faith in us as race car drivers. Kelly would even say back in the mid-nineties when we were starting, that she didn’t know if I was ever gonna be a race car driver. Like I didn’t sort of have any initiative to go that round.”

What changed for Junior?

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Surprisingly enough, an opportunity to race late models was what made Earnhardt Jr really excited about racing. He explained, “And, so when we started racing late models, that’s when I started taking it serious.”

He explained, “Cause I saw ‘Man! These cars are pretty good. This is fun. I am racing against some tough guys down there at the beach, in Florence and Nashville, where we went to run, and I started taking it pretty serious.'”

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Hence, even though Junior did not have any grand plans for his future in race-car driving, his passion and excitement for late-model cars forced him to take up racing seriously. And thank God for those late-model races! If not for them, NASCAR would have never found their invaluable Pied Piper of Daytona.