“Controllable” Dale Earnhardt Jr Set for Return to Racing Where His Dad Made a Firm Phone Call to Kickstart His Career

The ‘Pied-Piper’ of the Daytona 500 is back! Yes, it’s official. Dale Earnhardt Jr is set to race again in November this year. And what’s more interesting? He would be reliving his father’s wish all over again.

Dale Earnhardt Jr recently tweeted his week-long schedule for the upcoming All-Star series. And on November 19, 2022, the former NASCAR Cup Series driver will be racing at the Florence Motor Speedway. Glad to race alongside the best short-track racers in the Charlie Powell Memorial South Carolina 400, Earnhardt is glad to be back.

But the Florence Motor Speedway is much more relevant than marking his comeback. In 1996, Earnhardt Jr won a Late Model event at the race track. Moreover, in 2017, Charlie Powell, a long-time owner of the speedway shared an important anecdote about the Earnhardt family and the racetrack.

He revealed; “It started out with (Dale Jr.’s) dad calling me and telling me he wanted Dale Jr. to race Florence. A couple of years before he moved him up anywhere else and didn’t want him to race in the Charlotte area where they lived in Kannapolis. He wanted him to race at Florence and Myrtle Beach. We ran Fridays, and Myrtle Beach ran Saturdays.”

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

Apart from this, Powell also shared some other aspects of his conversation with Dale Earnhardt Sr. And in one interesting anecdote, he revealed that the ‘Intimidator’ did not want people and other drivers to treat him differently.

Why did Dale Earnhardt Sr didn’t want his son to be treated ‘different’?

During his conversation about the Florence Speedway with South Carolina Now, Powell shared;“(Dale Sr.) didn’t want him (Dale Jr.) to spend the night down here. After the race was over, he’d try to get him as quickly out of here to go home and then drive back to Myrtle Beach.”

Furthermore, he revealed that Dale Earnhardt Sr was very controllable about Dale Jr as he did not want him to be involved in frivolous partying. He added; “He wanted to take care of him, you know?”

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Moreover, Powell revealed that Dale Sr once called him to ask if he would take care of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Powell said; “And one of the things he wanted was for (Junior) not to be treated different from anybody else.” Furthermore, he said that when Earnhardt won in 1996, “The drivers didn’t cut him no slack. When he won that race, he earned it.”