It starts with a song that is soft, familiar, and wrapped in nostalgia. Somewhere in North Carolina, Dale Earnhardt Jr. settles into his seat, presses play, and lets the unmistakable voice of Stevie Nicks carry him away. For most, Fleetwood Mac is classic rock royalty, the soundtrack to road trips, heartbreaks, and late-night vinyl spins. But for Dale Jr., it’s something far more profound. It’s a bridge, a tether to a time long past, a whispered conversation with a woman whose presence he still feels in every note.

If you ever see him lost in thought with “Landslide” playing in the background, don’t interrupt. You’re witnessing something sacred: a ritual, an emotional cleanse, and a return to the backseat of a car that carried both his childhood dreams and his mother’s unwavering love.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. embraces a musical reset

Dale Jr. isn’t just another guy who enjoys Fleetwood Mac; he is on a self-proclaimed “music cleanse.” “So yeah, I’ve been listening to Fleetwood Mac, going on a music cleanse,” said Dale Jr. And no, it’s not about rediscovering ‘70s rock or adding depth to his Spotify Wrapped. It’s about something deeper, a reset button for the soul.

“I’ve got reground, reset, mash the reset button back to zero,” he explained on the Bless Your ‘Hardt podcast with his wife, Amy Earnhardt. It’s as if Stevie Nicks herself is helping him recalibrate his emotions like a finely tuned stock car. But why Fleetwood Mac? Why not Skynyrd or something with a little more horsepower? Well, because in every lyric, every melody, Dale Jr. hears his mom, Brenda Lorraine Jackson.

“I do love to connect Mom and Stevie Nicks,” he admits, his voice thick with emotion. “There’s something about her voice, her whole demeanor and sound that puts me in the backseat of my mom’s car riding around Kannapolis.” Junior grew up in the quaint little town of Kannapolis, North Carolina. With his father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., busy pursuing his racing exploits, it was his mother who drove him around the town, so any memory of her always hits the hardest.

That backseat wasn’t just a car seat; it was a time capsule. And like all good time capsules, it held memories too precious to fade. Brenda Jackson passed away in April 2019 after a long battle with cancer, and it’s such small things that keep her loving memory fresh in Dale Earnhardt Jr.‘s mind.

“Mom had long hair back when we were with her in the early ‘80s,” he recalls. “And I begged her never [cut it]. She cut it. She moved to Norfolk. Next time I see her, she’s got short hair, and I was freaking heartbroken.” He laughs about it now, but for a kid who clung to every tiny detail of his mother’s presence, that haircut felt like a seismic shift. Especially considering it mirrored Stevie Nicks’ long hair, something Dale Jr. really admired, and a young Jr. had a huge crush on Nicks. “When I was six years old, I told daddy that was my girlfriend,” Jr. said as Amy was grinning beside him.

“She grew it back long one time for me,” Jr. adds, like a son forever grateful for a mother’s quiet gesture of love. The thing about mothers is that they leave fingerprints on your soul. And when they leave this world, those fingerprints remain on old photographs, in familiar scents, and, yes, in the songs they unknowingly engrain into their children’s hearts.

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More than a song, more than a memory

Brenda Jackson wasn’t just Dale Jr.’s mother. She was his biggest supporter, the woman who understood him beyond the racetrack. After her divorce from Dale Earnhardt Sr., she did what many mothers do: she sacrificed. She ensured Dale and his sister, Kelley, had the best shot at life, even if that meant giving up daily moments with them. A house fire changed everything. Dale Jr. and Kelley had to move in with their father while Brenda moved back to Virginia. But the miles never dulled the bond.

Speaking to the public after his mother’s passing, Junior reflected on how understanding his mother was and what she went through. “You, a single mother, us losing everything in a house fire. You gave custody of us two kids to our father, knowing that he could provide a promising future,” he said in a video for ESPN.

Dale Jr. knows his mother isn’t coming back. That’s the harsh truth of life and loss. But that doesn’t mean she’s gone. She’s still there in his memories, in the stories he tells, and in the melodies that transport him back to a backseat where life felt simple and safe. In a world where speed is everything, sometimes slowing down just enough to listen is the greatest tribute of all.

So the next time you hear Fleetwood Mac playing in the distance, maybe, just maybe, you’re catching an echo of a son’s love for his mother, carried on the wind like a whispered lullaby from the past.