Dale Earnhardt Jr. Gets Brutally Honest on NASCAR Drivers’ Rolex 24 Participation: “We’re Kind of the Last Guy They Want in the Car”

You don’t need a sports analyst to tell you the difference between stock car racing and endurance racing is as big as night and day, quite literally. The drivers are aware of this difference as well, irrespective of their achievements or status. Recently, NASCAR legend and Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt Jr. also shed some light on the same.

Earnhardt Jr., who took part in the Next Gen testing at the Daytona circuit, was asked whether he would want to return to the 24 hours of Daytona that takes place at the end of January.

Now, that isn’t unchartered territory for the former Hendrick driver since he ran in the same race in 2001 with his father, the great Dale Earnhardt.

But a question of participation in 2022 was something Dale Jr. quickly shot down. “I got no business out there,” he said. “I mean, you see the discrepancy with some of my peers who compete with these guys … any of us that drive these stock-cars and then get in those cars, we’re never the No. 1 guy on the team.”

“We’re kind of the last guy they want in the car.”

He described how the “pure speed” of endurance racers is on another level, “ramped way up.” 

If not endurance, could Dale Earnhardt Jr make a comeback to stock cars?

During the same testing at Daytona, when asked whether getting back in the Next Gen, reignited a desire to race again in Earnhardt Jr, he said, “no impact.”

This is because at 47-years of age, for Dale Earnhardt Jr, being around his family is more than being in a race car.“I’ve got two little girls that I love being around,” he said. “I put my wife through a lot to race.”

Dale added that at this stage in his life, he simply doesn’t want to take the risks that come pre-requisite with racing. “I’m done taking risks,” Earnhardt Jr. said.

Also Read: Dale Earnhardt Jr Shares an Interesting Yet Shocking Trivia Title Involving Two of the Greatest NASCAR Drivers