A few years ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr made an appearance on Good Morning America. Over there, he talked about his late father and also his own racing career. Among other subjects, he opened up on one of the biggest turning points in his career. Although it was some pretty devastating news at first, it acted as a springboard for his career. To be precise, Dale Jr got fired from his first job, working in a dealership.

He said, “I got fired. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I was working at the dealership and the service manager wanted us to stay after work, and I said, ‘Well, can we stay on the clock?’. He said no and I said, ‘Well I got a haircut I’m supposed to get. I’m going to go get the haircut’. He just said, ‘you just do what you need to do’. It was a 45-minute drive, I wasn’t making a lot of money. I couldn’t be driving all over town and driving home.”

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What else did Dale Earnhardt Jr say?

Of course, he was a little worried about his father’s reaction to him leaving work. Dale Sr was pretty much a hard taskmaster, and wouldn’t take too kindly to his son shirking off work. So, he had to tread very carefully and consult his father on the situation.

He said, “Figured Dad would see me when I got home and send me back up there and say, ‘Get back to work’. I called him, and he said, ‘Tell the guy you’re working, you’re not going home. You’re going to stay’. So I went in there and said, ‘I’m either working or you send me home for good’. He said, ‘Go pack up your toolbox and get out of here’. Went home and dad said, ‘Wow he sent you home for good?’. I said yeah and he goes, ‘Well I’ll put you to work on race cars’. Got to start working on race cars, it was the best thing ever.”

Truthfully speaking, it would have really hurt to lose out on a job like that. However the bright side was that it acted as a stepping stone to biggest and better things. Since then, he has never looked back

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