Dale Earnhardt Jr expected to rejoice solely as a team owner at the Homestead-Miami Speedway this weekend. Two of JR Motorsports’ Xfinity drivers vied for the championship four spots in Phoenix. But team owner Dale Jr. proved age was merely a number and qualified himself for the Contender Boats 250 race.

Despite giving the young playoff racers a run for their money, the Hall of Famer did not seem at the top of his health. An earlier bout of pneumonia had caused concerns in the racing community, and Junior’s post-race interview only served to elevate them.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. confessed Kyle Larson would have won Homestead in JR Motorsports’ No. 88 Chevy

Dale Earnhardt Jr. may have officially retired as a full-time driver in 2017, but he continued to tease an occasional appearance in the years that followed. The 2x Xfinity champion registered three Top 5 finishes in his six post-retirement races. If not for a fire hazard, Dale Jr. nearly won the playoff race in Bristol last month.

In his 7th such race at Homestead, the prolific racer secured another Top 5 finish. The race turned out to be doubly joyful when his #1 driver, Sam Mayer, emerged victorious and confirmed his championship four positions. But the team owner was clearly under the weather while speaking to Frontstretch later.

When the reporter insinuated that Junior’s #88 Chevrolet could not keep up with him, the veteran racer modestly took the blame upon himself. Coughing between sentences, Dale Jr admitted, “Well, it was pretty good right there at the end. I think the driver wasn’t at his best physically. I kind of got tired. Not doing this thing every week, my body’s just not conditioned and I certainly don’t work out. So yeah, it might have been able to run second, third, or fourth. If [Kyle] Larson was driving, it probably won the race. But I’ll take fifth place, 49 years old only do this once or twice a year. Hardly no practice.”

“Golly! I was lost in qualifying. I was worried all morning about how we were going to race. I sent him down the wrong path on the first adjustment at the end of stage one, so I got us a little behind there. And then they got to making the better adjustments to help the car to where we could drive up forward. We had good speed, just I don’t run these things every week. We might win a race or two in this in this series, but it’s a lot of work. I really admire drivers and the teams that compete every week because just coming and doing it once takes a lot”, Junior added further.

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Dale Jr. might be willing to chalk it up to a lack of practice, but he was forced to miss his broadcast at the Charlotte Motor Speedway due to a far more troubling reason.

Junior went the intimidator’s way to recover from a serious illness

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. carried forward the legacy of the legendary intimidator, he inherited a lot more than Dale Earnhardt’s racing genes. The father-son duo had unparalleled supremacy at the treacherous Talladega Superspeedway. Similar to his 7x champion father, Dale Jr. marked his victory at the prestigious Daytona 500 race. Junior further carved his own path in the Xfinity Series and mentored up-and-coming racers to launch their careers. The first-time Oval winner, Sam Mayer, was a shining example of that guidance and support.

However, Dale Jr. also preferred to follow in his father’s footsteps when it came to medical treatments. Recently revealed in his podcast, Dale Jr. recalled the intimidator’s reliance on penicillin shots instead of prescription pills. Junior, too, developed a greater ease with shots and requested the same when diagnosed with pneumonia in his right lung. He claimed to have defeated his illness after the treatment, but the remnants of such a serious infection were evident in his forlorn visage and ailing body.

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Still, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s 5th-place finish indicated a future win was around the corner for this champion driver. But for now, Dale Jr. needed to prioritize his health and look forward to a possible championship for JR Motorsports in the season’s finale.