Dale Earnhardt Jr Learns the Reality Behind “Broke” “Janitor” Ex-NASCAR CEO Brian France’s Forced Experience
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INDIANAPOLIS, IN – JULY 24: Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the #88 Nationwide Chevrolet, stands in the garage during practice for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Crown Royal Presents the Jeff Kyle 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motorspeedway on July 24, 2015 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Sean Gardner/NASCAR via Getty Images)
You could belong to the family that founded one of America’s most popular forms of motorsports, and you could still be working as a janitor. This was once the life of Brian France, the former CEO of NASCAR, as he recently revealed to Dale Earnhardt Jr.
France appeared as a guest on the former driver’s podcast show, the Dale Jr. Download, and during their conversation, Junior asked the ex-CEO, “Your first job was…a janitor at Talladega?”
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“Yeah, I did everything you could do. And the reason to that was the case was, the way we had it setup was you were going to have opportunities but my dad had a thing about performance. You’re gonna have to perform,” France replied.
“Whatever you’re doing, you’re not above anybody and you’re not below anybody, and he was real clear about that.”
That said, France did acknowledge that all that he did during his early years, all the jobs he took wasn’t simply because he wanted to climb a ladder, “it was to earn money.”
“It was to earn money on the weekends. My dad kept telling me, ‘I’m doing okay, but you’re broke,'” he added.
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Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the only racing-related lesson Dale Sr. taught him
In a conversation with Dale Jarrett back in 2018, Dale Earnhardt Jr. opened up on the only time he received racing-related advice from his father, the great Dale Earnhardt Sr.
This was during a practice session at Bristol when Junior was putting in some laps, during which he received a radio message from his father.
“He took the whole lap and wound it back counterclockwise,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “He basically was teaching me to get in the corner easier and off the corner harder. I was overdriving the car. It made the lap more about momentum and timing and rhythm.”
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“This made driving Bristol really easy.”
PHOENIX, AZ — November 6, 1999: Although he finished second to Jeff Gordon in the Outback Steakhouse 200 at Phoenix International Raceway, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (L) and his dad Dale Earnhardt (R) had plenty of reason to celebrate, as the younger Earnhardt clinched the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series championship even though there was still one race to run the following week at Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Photo by ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images)
PHOENIX, AZ — November 6, 1999: Although he finished second to Jeff Gordon in the Outback Steakhouse 200 at Phoenix International Raceway, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (L) and his dad Dale Earnhardt (R) had plenty of reason to celebrate, as the younger Earnhardt clinched the NASCAR Busch Grand National Series championship even though there was still one race to run the following week at Homestead-Miami Speedway. (Photo by ISC Images & Archives via Getty Images)
To Earnhardt Jr, it was “a great lesson”, something that left him totally surprised considering the Intimidator wasn’t one to give a lot of advice anyway.
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“He taught me really well in this particular situation,” the Hall of Famer remarked.
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