“Didn’t Wanna Join Twitter” – Dale Earnhardt Jr Lets Slip Lacking Daytona 500 Faith Behind Infamous Social Media Bet

Despite it being several years since he retired from full-time racing, Dale Earnhardt Jr is one of the most popular and loved members of the NASCAR community today. In an ever-changing world, the former Cup Series driver has kept himself relevant and his influence on social media has played a big part in that. However, fans may not have been able to follow Junior on Twitter had it not been for a bet which involved the Daytona 500.

Junior has had an illustrious career in NASCAR despite not winning the Cup Series championships. A couple of his biggest achievements are his two Daytona 500 wins. The second of those wins, which came in 2014, was something that the then-Hendrick Motorsports driver had not expected. And that led to one of the most followed social media profiles in the history of the sport.

The bet which made Dale Earnhardt Jr a social media celebrity

On a recent episode of The Dale Jr Download podcast, the two-time Xfinity Series champion revealed that he had a bet before the 2014 Daytona 500. Junior did not believe that he was going to win The Great American Race that year. There were several drivers whose odds were a lot better. He did not want to join Twitter at the time either, so he promised that he would join the social media platform if he won the race that year.

Well, turns out that he ended up winning his career’s second Daytona 500 that year, and perhaps joining Twitter was not on his mind when he jumped out of the car to celebrate. Junior had no idea about the platform at the time either, so his PR person at the time gave him a crash course about it on their way to media duties at the West Coast.

“Coming off of that 2014 Daytona 500 win, we ended up joining Twitter. I didn’t want to join Twitter. And I knew the odds of me winning the Daytona 500 weren’t very high. Everybody had great odds. It’s a tough race to win. So I said, you know what? If I win the Daytona 500, I will join Twitter. Didn’t think I was gonna have to follow through. That’s probably my most liked and retweeted tweet from 2014. Then we get in a plane and we fly out to the West Coast to do all this media. So on the way to the West Coast, I got a crash course from Laura, our PR girl at the time, on all of the ins and outs of Twitter,” the 49-year-old revealed.

The bet he made was with his Hendrick Motorsports teammate at the time, none other than the 7-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson. And the first tweet he made blew up so much that in a day, the veteran earned around 300,000 followers.

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What was Junior’s first tweet that earned him 300,000 followers at once?

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According to NASCAR, Junior had always been skeptical of joining Twitter. He was averse to the idea early on in his career when sponsors urged him to join social media, but as time went by, the resistance in his mind kept coming down bit by bit. There were times when he felt torn about the idea of joining Twitter and that is when he made the bet with Johnson.

His first tweet on Twitter is considered to be iconic in terms of NASCAR social media. It was perhaps one of the first viral tweets in the racing community at the time, and rightfully so. It was from NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver and the winner of the most recent Daytona 500. “Tonight seemed like as good a night as any to join Twitter. How is everyone doin? #2XDaytona500Champ,” he tweeted and instantly became a social media celebrity.

Since that day, Junior has been building up his presence not just on Twitter (now X), but on all forms of social media, and today, his voice is one of the most influential ones in the world of NASCAR. To think that all this would not have happened had it not been for Dale Earnhardt Jr’s lack of confidence in himself to go out there and win the Daytona 500 is incredible.

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