Racing to the Finish by Dale Earnhardt Jr

Author:Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2018-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 6

HARD TRUTHS

Saturday, July 6, 2016

Daytona International Speedway

From the minute I first hit the racetrack for practice, I knew something wasn’t right. I’m reluctant to use the word easy to describe racing at Daytona, but that place always came easy to me. I would have this constant awareness, knowing where everyone is around me at all times and just instinctively knowing who is going to do what and what’s coming next. I can be sitting in a pack of cars and just instantly sense things like, Okay, the outside line is about to be on the move, and pull it up there just in time to catch that train and go to the front. When I’m in the draft, I’m calling the shots. Everyone knows it too.

But when practice started, I immediately realized that those abilities were gone. If I made a move, it was a beat too late. If I sensed a guy was going to make a move, by the time I processed that thought, he had already made it and was gone. He had dusted me. It was like everything was moving at seven-eighths’ speed.

Racecar drivers don’t do anything at seven-eighths’ speed. Perhaps I had experienced this symptom before, but never at the racetrack, certainly never in the car.

Another symptom was returning now too. That constant irritation was creeping back. I could feel it. It was like that day at Talladega in 2012, the day of my “bloodthirsty” rant, when I suddenly wasn’t able to control my emotions or put a filter between my mind and my mouth. The timing couldn’t have been worse.

When I returned to my motorcoach, Amy informed me that Rick Hendrick wanted me to come by his bus for a chat. I knew what he wanted to talk about. My contract with Hendrick Motorsports was up at the end of 2017, the next season. Rick, eager to keep our sponsors happy, wanted us to start talking about getting an extension signed before it became a hot topic in the media. Amy knew I was having a bad day, and she made me promise to keep a cool head. I told her that I would.

Instead, I totally blew up. Rick thought we were going to talk about another three-year deal, but instead what he got was a rant from me, telling him I was tired of driving racecars. I yelled it. I told him I was done, that I hated it. I wasn’t having any fun on the racetrack or really anywhere, so I was done. I could leave that bus right then and there and walk out of the track and never come back and that would be fine with me. For accuracy, take those last five sentences and cram a bunch of cuss words into them.

I know he wasn’t expecting me to say what I said. Heck, I wasn’t expecting to say what I said, either. But my filter was gone. I felt awful. That was it. While I carried on it was like all of a sudden I realized the truth.

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