Former IndyCar and NASCAR driver Danica Patrick once had a chat with Dale Earnhardt Jr on her podcast. During the episode, Junior recalled a childhood story of when he woke up one morning and the house was on fire and how the incident made sure that he had to live with his dad instead of his mother, who was “broke.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr states, “I was living with mom in a real small house in Kannapolis and woke up one morning and the house was on fire and big time on fire.”

“So mom’s boyfriend comes into the bedroom and he’s like get your pj’s on we gotta get out of here. I’m like I’m just waking up, I don’t know what’s going on but I get my pj’s on and I walk out of the bedroom and I look to the right and the whole kitchen is just a big wall of fire.”

“Craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my life I mean you never forget something like that.”

He then further adds, “Well, we walk outside and the next thing I know I’m standing a day or two later, I’m standing in dad’s garage at Lake Norman in Mooresville, and all our stuff’s in there, all our stuff’s in the garage and we’re gonna live with dad.”

“So mom was broke and had to move back to Norfolk, Virginia to be closer to some family there.”

“That was the decision she made, she couldn’t afford it, it was just gonna be too hard on her to maintain me and Kelley. She had no job or anything at that time and so we went to live with dad.”

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Earnhardt Jr’s life early on wasn’t a walk in the part as some might think. There were constant emotional struggles growing up as well.

Dale Earnhardt Jr candidly reveals how he and Teresa Earnhardt didn’t get along at first

During the same podcast, Junior went on to speak about the relationship he shared with his father’s wife, Teresa.

Junior said, “I didn’t know dad, I didn’t know Teresa, she was there at that point and that was a hard thing. Me and Teresa when I was a kid we butt heads hard.”

“You know we were sprung into her life. I mean she was with dad and thinking man I’ve got this vision of this future and boom here comes these two kids from his previous marriage, that are now just gonna, we’re just gonna plop into the household and she’s gotta adjust her expectations of her future with dad.”

He added, “I understand her frustration with that.”

“But me and Kelley, we just tried, it was weird, there was a lotta good, amazing things that happened because now I’m with dad. I get to know him, get to go to the races.”

“It was an amazing experience to be going to the racetrack and enjoying all those things.”

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Junior’s life might have been full of ups and downs, but years later, he successfully managed to lead his family name to further success.