Dad wasn't going to stick around to party. Of course
Dale Earnhardt had already celebrated 75
NASCAR Cup Series wins of his own by the time his son,
Dale Earnhardt Jr. , scored his first win in NASCAR's top series. Junior made his Cup Series debut back in 1999, and in 2000 he began driving full-time for his father's race team, DEI, in 2000. And it didn't take long for Dale Jr. to find success in that #8 Budweiser car. His first win came just 7 races into the season at Texas Motor Speedway when Junior won the DirecTV 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. And one of the first people to come see him in victory lane was, of course, his father Dale Earnhardt. Any NASCAR fan probably remembers the iconic video of Earnhardt walking up to talk to his son in victory lane, yanking another guy out of the way so he could stick his head in the car before Junior even had a chance to get out himself. But as it turns out, the conversation wasn't just to congratulate to younger Earnhardt on his first-ever Cup Series win. On an episode of his
Dale Jr. Download podcast, Junior revealed what his dad said to him when he stuck his head in the car - and as it turns out, he was telling him that he had to find a new ride home now that he won the race:
"We pull into victory lane, and the first thing that always happened at the races was that the PR guy, Jade Gurss at the time...he comes to the window and he's like, 'Alright, real quickly, remember to say Budweiser.' That's their job, that's his job every week... And he's coming in to the window, and you see this in the replay of the victory lane celebration, and dad grabs him by the neck and yanks him out of the way and jumps in there. And dad said, 'Awesome job, I'm proud of you, now you're going to have to find another way home.' Because he was going home. I would fly with him in his plane, and he was like, 'I'm out of here, you're gonna have to stick around because of post-race interviews, and you're gonna ride home with the team.'" Of course the winner of the race has to stick around and take pictures with everybody, meet with the media, talk about the race and what it means to win, all that fun stuff. But Earnhardt was getting out of there - which meant Junior wasn't going to be able to fly back to North Carolina with him. And Junior admits that he wanted his dad to stay and celebrate his first win with him:
"He wasn't gonna wait around on me. And I was so mad. I was like, 'Come on man, hang out, this is gonna be great.'" But by that point, Earnhardt had already won 75 races of his own. Sounds like he didn't feel like celebrating, even when the winner was his own son. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znzz8WA2XxY
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