NASCAR News: Semi-Retired Driver Makes Unique 'Addiction' Admission

A NASCAR veteran isn’t ready to detach himself from the sport he loves.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. didn’t totally leave NASCAR, having been semi-retired since 2017. Though he may not feel the itch to get his hands behind the wheel again, the 46-year-old has admitted that he has always been a slave of the competition.

During an interview with Forbes last December, the 26-time NASCAR Cup Series winner openly discussed his apparent “addiction” to motorsports.

According to Earnhardt, he finds it hard to completely detached himself from the sport as he has already been “too invested.”

“In racing, you get that addiction to competition and you need to find that somewhere,” Earnhardt said on a Zoom call. “There’s a need to be involved in the sport. When you’re a driver and you’re doing this every single week for a couple of decades, it’s impossible to unplug completely and disappear.”

“Some drivers seem to do that and want that,” he continued. “I’m too invested. I have too many tentacles reaching out in the sport to just walk off.”

Earnhardt is the son of the late 76-time Winston Cup winner Dale Earnhardt Sr. He last competed in June 2020 at the NASCAR Xfinity Series Race Homestead-Miami.

Since then, the North Carolina native has been dedicated to bringing JR Motorsports to NASCAR, having been the team’s co-owner.

After Josh Berry’s recent win at the Xfinity Series race at Martinsville Speedway, Earnhardt revealed that “with the new car coming,” discussions over the plausibility of a NASCAR Cup Series program are already in the works.

“With the new car coming, me and my sister [JR Motorsports co-owner Kelley Earnhardt-Miller] have certainly talked a little bit about whether that presents an opportunity for JR Motorsports to go into the Cup Series,” the former Cup Series driver told the media Sunday.

“I think the charter system makes it a big challenge for us—that’s a huge financial challenge for anybody trying to get involved in the Cup Series,” he continued. “Josh [Berry] would absolutely be a driver I’d look at if we were going to build a Cup program, but I’m just trying to get us into a full-time Xfinity program with Josh."

"I’m just trying to get him into the Xfinity Series program where he can continue to prove himself, and if the Cup Series is in our future, maybe Josh is the driver that helps us make that happen.”