Dale Earnhardt Jr Confessed His Father Was Too Busy to Guide Him in His Childhood in a Heartfelt Interview to NFL Star

Having someone as iconic as The Intimidator as his father, one would assume Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a lot of help with his racing career. Surprisingly though, turns out it was quite the opposite. It seems Dale Sr. was far too busy with his career to be helping out his son.

Junior was just left alone to figure out his own way of racing cars.

In an episode of ‘I am Athlete’ podcast, Junior talked about his father’s role in his racing career. And turns out his role was small, as he was too occupied with his own career.

Talking to Brandon Marshall and Chad Johnson, he said, “When I was 13 years old my dad was really focused on his own career. He wasn’t like gonna go out in the yard and play with me on a go-kart; he wasn’t going to do that kind of thing with me.”

“He’d go to work at the shop in the morning and he’d come home at nine o’clock at night and sit down, sit on his recliner pop that thing back, and be asleep in 20 seconds. And so I didn’t have a lot of time to you know, pick his ear and say, hey what do I need to do? What should I be helping you?”

Surprisingly, it didn’t change until he got fed up and had to say something. “I remember sitting on the couch and he’s he pops in that recliner, nine o’clock at night, and I was like ‘dad I’m 13 and I can’t wait anymore, I don’t, it’s driving me crazy.”

“I want to race so bad I can’t stand it. I don’t know what to do and you don’t seem to get it like you don’t seem to understand how bad I want to do this.”

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So, did Dale Sr. hear what Junior had to say?

Did Dale Sr. finally help his son, Dale Earnhardt Jr. out?

Earnhardt Sr. had a different approach to teaching his son. Well, it was quite the fatherly approach of throwing their kid in the pool to make them learn how to swim. Basically, the seven-time Cup Series Champion told his son to build his own car and run in a series.

Junior explained, “One day I came into uh the shop and he threw a newspaper down on the table and there was a sports page from the charlotte observer that was talking about this new series and you could basically take a car off the street and put a roll cage in it and race it.”

“He said you ‘should figure out how to do this’. And so it took a couple hundred bucks I had me a car and we went [me] and my brother went and started racing”

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So, do you think Earnhardt Sr.’s way to teach his son was appropriate? Let us know in the comments.