I’m playing DraftKings this season and will be posting my picks here each week. Disclosure: If you want to play and sign up using this link, DraftKings will give my website a commission. Disclosure No. 2: I might be America’s worst daily fantasy player.
Last race’s results: Played the $3 Hot Rod game with a three entry max. Finished 600th out of 7,800 and won $7.
Season results: $15 wagered, $7 won in eight contests.
This week’s contest: $4 entry Brake Pad game with only one entry per player allowed.
Richmond picks:
— Kyle Busch ($10,600). He’s the most expensive at Richmond for a reason. Busch leads all active drivers in wins (four), top fives (15, including six second-place finishes) and average finish (7.0, more than three positions better than the next-closest driver).
— Denny Hamlin ($9,300). The hometown favorite won last fall’s Richmond race from the pole and has an average finish of 10.1 — second among active drivers. In addition, he was second-fastest for 10-lap averages in final practice.
— Matt Kenseth ($8,800). I’m making a big bet on the Toyotas this weekend, as you can tell. But he starts from the pole, and I’m really looking for a driver who can lead laps (which is so key on short tracks). Since moving to Joe Gibbs Racing, Kenseth has six top-10 finishes in eight races here. He was fourth-fastest in 10-lap averages in final practice.
— Erik Jones ($8,100). As long as he’s relatively cheap, I’m going to keep picking him every week. In Saturday’s first practice, he was fastest in both single-lap and 10-lap average, although he dropped to 14th in best 10-lap average.
— Ricky Stenhouse Jr. ($7,000). So cheap for how well he might run. Worth taking a chance on, especially because he was seventh in 10-lap averages for final practice.
— Aric Almirola ($6,200). If this pick works, it’s just going to purely be dumb luck. Almirola was the top driver left with the unused salary cap money (I ended up using all of it) since I spent so much on the Toyota drivers. He was 20th in both 10-lap average and single lap for final practice.
Here’s a quick roundup of what drivers were talking about Friday at Richmond International Raceway:
— Dale Earnhardt Jr. gave a couple more hints about what he might want to do in the future (coughTVcough).
“Obviously I enjoyed my fun in the booth (as a guest analyst),” he said. “If that’s an opportunity for me, I’m certainly going to have those conversations to find out.”
He added: “One of the people that I really respected a lot was Benny Parsons (who was also a well-known TV analyst in addition to his driving career). I thought that he left as important of a mark outside the car as he did inside the car. Whatever mark I can leave, I would love to be able to be as big an asset to the sport as I can be beyond driving.”
— The speculation about a possible Carl Edwards return still won’t go away, so I asked his former Denny Hamlin — who is very good at predictions — to estimate the odds of a Carl comeback.
“I would just be guessing, but I would say 50 percent,” Hamlin said. “Carl is a competitor. At his age (37), I’d find it hard to believe that he would just step away and not do it ever again. I think him leaving the window open in his press conference to say he’s not retiring, he’s just stepping away, I think it depends.”
Hamlin then cracked a smile.
“Has anyone found out whether he’s having a good time right now or not?” he said. “I think that would tell the story about whether he’s interested in coming back or not. From what I hear from all the retired drivers, it’s awesome for like a few months — then you kind of get bored a little bit.”
— Kyle Larson and Brad Keselowski both were noncommittal when answering questions about the status of their contracts and whether they would be interested in replacing Earnhardt in the No. 88 car.
Larson, who is believed to have a contract with Chip Ganassi Racing beyond this year, would not say there was zero possibility of him leaving the team when asked.
“Oh, I’d have to talk to Chip before I came out in public about anything that serious,” he said. “So I won’t talk about anything like that because I don’t even know if I’m allowed to or not. I know Jamie (McMurray) is very secret about all his stuff. But I don’t know.”
Keselowski, speaking to a small group of reporters later in the day, wouldn’t say whether he is working on a contract extension with Team Penske (“There’s some stuff going on, but I’m not (able) to mention it in detail”).
And of any interest of returning to Hendrick Motorsports, where he began his Cup career on a partial schedule, to drive the 88?
“Do I have to have a yes or a no?” he said with a laugh. “It’s a Hendrick car, which by nature means it’s going to be one of the best cars available for a long period of time. But I would also say the car I’m in is one of the best available, and the team I’m with, I have a lot of equity in. So I’m pretty darn happy where I’m at. But I’ve learned in this world to never say no (definitively).”
— Matt Kenseth won the pole for Richmond, followed by Ryan Blaney, Martin Truex Jr., Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Joey Logano.
It’s Kenseth’s first No. 1 starting spot since Kansas last fall and his seventh consecutive season with at least one pole — this after failing to get a pole in eight of his first 11 seasons.
— Austin Dillon crew chief Slugger Labbe was kept back in North Carolina by Richard Childress Racing after the team failed the laser inspection station five times at Bristol last week. Operations director Sammy Johns is crew-chiefing for Dillon this weekend instead.
Dillon lost his pit selection for this week and had to start in the back as part of the inspection penalty.
There were also a host of teams that lost practice time due to Texas and Bristol infractions, including a 30-minute penalty for both Kenseth and Logano for swerving after the race.
Each week, I’m asking someone from the racing industry about their social media use in a feature called the Social Spotlight. Up next: Brennan Poole, the Xfinity Series driver from Chip Ganassi Racing. You can follow Poole’s vlog on YouTube here or check out his Twitter and Instagram feeds. This interview is also available in podcast form.
You’re into a lot of different forms of social media. What’s your favorite?
That’s a good question. I was trying to come up with something funny to say there, but I just don’t have anything. I totally bombed it.
But I like YouTube. I like creating the vlogs and doing the videos. Like you said, it’s Friday here in Bristol and I have vlog coming out today, so I’m excited about that. It’s a West Coast Swing vlog. I got to go out there and run Corvettes and I went hiking and I was in Vegas. We ran into Siegfried from Siegfried & Roy, so I have a lot of cool content for the vlogs. That’s what’s really fun to me — trying to make a little movie every day. So I enjoy doing that. It is tough, though. It does take up a lot of time and I end up becoming slack and missing things and whatever.
But I also enjoy Twitter and Instagram. What’s cool about Instagram is that it’s just pictures. I think nowadays, we all live in this world where we want to see images and we want to watch video — we don’t really want to read much of anything. So on Twitter, I watch the videos and I look at pictures on Twitter that might not be on Instagram. I like Twitter because I can share news and articles and post links that you can click on to go right to things, but I’m probably on Instagram more than anything else.
I did like Vine, but it doesn’t exist now.
Yeah, what the hell? Vine was a big loss.
Yeah, Vine was like, when I’m in the restroom, I’m just on Vine the whole time scrolling through every video. And when I see something funny, I send it to a friend and it just grows out of control and then my entire friend group is watching this one stupid Vine.
But I had some Vines that I thought were funny, but it seemed like Vine was hard to gain followers yourself. If you weren’t a Vine star, you weren’t gonna gain traction because everybody was only watching their content, so that part of it was tough.
Where like YouTube, your content is just out there for everyone and you can just push out whatever you want and you can really start to grow. I think my subscribers have been growing, and of course all my content now is on NASCAR.com, so you can watch all my stuff on their YouTube channel or whatever, but it’s on their website. We got 1,200 views on the Daytona vlog, so I’m kind of proud of that. I’m hoping that it’ll continue to grow.
Let’s talk about the YouTube stuff for a little bit. How did you decide that you wanted to be a vlogger, and is it one of these things where everything you do, you have to remember to take your phone out and film it?
I wanted to become a vlogger because of Casey Neistat. I was watching his vlogs every day and I was like, “Man, this guy is really good. He’s really interesting.” I was so influenced by listening to him talk about his struggles and how he became successful and stuff that he was working on to still become more successful, and so kind of being able to watch that journey with him day by day, I was like, “Man, this is something that’s special.”
And so I thought that a NASCAR driver needed to do this, somebody in NASCAR needs to do this. And the more I watched him, the more time that went by, I was like, “Screw it, I’m gonna just buy a camera and do it.” Now, I do shoot a lot of it off my phone now because in the garage and when I’m doing stuff for DC Solar and NASCAR, it’s hard to be carrying a camera around or have a backpack for the camera and everything.
Nowadays on your phone you can shoot 4K, so I just grab my phone and start shooting whatever I think is interesting and I do time lapses and everything off my phone. All that stuff comes out in really good quality, and the audio sounds great, too.
You know, I think for me, I keep plugging Casey Neistat because I want to meet him one day, so I’m like, “Casey Neistat, Casey Neistat” in the media center or whatever and the random chance he may see it, (it might) get him to race me, get him to vlog his race experience. But most of his stuff just inspired me to do something different. It’s been a lot of fun.
What’s the editing process like? You take all this footage of your daily life, you’re going around doing all this stuff, and then you have to sit down once a week or once every couple of weeks and try to put all this together. How long does that take you and what all goes into that?
You know, everyone’s vlogs are different, so when I talk about mine, I don’t want to discourage anyone from doing a vlog because you can literally just do it on iMovie and cut it up and whatever, and you can do it that way.
But for us, one of my really good friends, Bryan Baumgartner, does most of the editing because I simply just don’t have time. You know, I’m training, I’m in the shop for meetings, I’m riding my bike, I’m in the pool swimming, I’m in the gym lifting, I’m studying film, I’m going over notes and pre-race notes and getting ready for the weekend. There’s just no time for me to sit down and edit a vlog and put one out every week.
So he’s been able to influence the vlog a lot and put in a little bit of his creativity, and he kind of sees some things a little bit differently than I see. And something that I may not really want to put in there, he’ll put it in the vlog and make it where I’m comfortable with it. And it ends up making the video even more interesting than what I thought because it’s always awkward when you’re filming yourself and then you’re judging yourself on what you should put in there.
So he kind of sees it like, “No, that’s really interesting, we need to have it go this way,” and so having that really helps me. But he spends 10 to 13 hours a week on the video because there’s so much content that he has to watch all of it. I try to point out things that I really think should be in the vlog or kind of how the stories went, and I have to give him when I shot what so he kind of knows the timeline, and then he just busts it out and he does a fantastic job.
Now is the vlog almost a year old, or not quite that long?
Not quite. I started it last year at the second Iowa race. That was the first one I ever did. So (the anniversary) is coming, it’s not too far away. But I had to learn through the process to film and record interesting things. If you watch the first couple, you’ll see that I just film in my car or I film in the shop or I film in my house — I’m not like walking around filming.
I think that’s what makes Casey Neistat’s vlogs so interesting, because one he lives in New York City and he’s riding around on his Boosted Board and he’s just shooting all this stuff and you kind of feel like you’re in New York and you’re experiencing some of his experiences.
So for me, I’m still trying to work on that, to make my fans and the audience feel like they’re there and a part of it, too. That’s what’s tough — getting those shots that make you feel like you’re actually there. So I feel like I’ve gotten better at that. My last several vlogs have been, in my opinion, really good, but I’m still working on creating that feel.
You talked about your subscribers growing a little bit. How tough is it then to get that audience? I’m sure at times, you put out a video and you’re waiting for the reaction and you’re like, “Hello?” You know, just the feeling of, “Does anybody see this? How can I get this in front of more people?”
For me, that’s why I try to do this stuff with NASCAR.com to help more people realize that it’s there (NASCAR has been uploading Poole’s videos to its own YouTube channel). I think for me on my social media and stuff I’m almost at 10,000 followers on Twitter and I’m close to 6,000 on Instagram, so I’m trying to push it to an audience that I just don’t quite have yet.
But I feel like if I have the content and it’s there, when people find out about it, they can go back and watch from Vlog No. 1 and there’s literally like a whole story there.
I think one thing that’s important is being consistent with putting videos out, which is something that I’ve struggled with. I’ve got a new deal in place now where I will have a video out every single week, which I’m really excited about starting this week — but it was just tough. Everyone has jobs to get done, so it’s really difficult to put time towards a product that you’re just trying to grow by yourself. It’s really tough. So I’m excited about the next several weeks.
Some of the new videos, the content that we have, I think is really funny, so I hope a lot of the fans and some of the drivers enjoy it. I’m only up to 400 or 500 subscribers, so I’m still trying to grow. But like I said, the NASCAR.com thing is starting to get more views and I’m starting to get up over 1,000 views on some of my videos, which for me is a big step. I think when you’re at a smaller number, getting to that first 1,000 is really hard, and then getting to the next 1,000 is a little easier, and the next and the next and the next, it kind of gets a little easier as it grows.
Hopefully by the end of this year, my goal was to get 50,000 views on a video or like 50,000 subscribers — 50,000 subscribers is insane, I try to be realistic — maybe 20,000, but that’s just really what I want to try and do because I like vlogging and doing it so much, and I feel like there’s a space there to create some interesting content and really give people a bit of a behind-the-scenes of what a race car driver really goes through.
I’m still a normal guy and a normal kid and I do normal things, but also you get to see a little bit of the training and the work side of things, being at the shop and kind of what I’m dealing with. I think it’s kind of cool because through video, you can really experience what someone’s going through, wherethrough a tweet or a picture, you might not necessarily see all that.
Do you want your vlog to be something that is mainly consumed by race fans, or do you have a vision of it becoming something that can attract the mainstream audience?
Yeah, I want it to attract the mainstream audience. I want it to be where people are tuning into the vlogs just because they’re interesting. I feel like that’s what people do with Casey Neistat’s vlogs and some of the other vloggers on YouTube; people just tune in because they’re invested in them as a person and so I really want to grow. Not that I want attention or anything like that, I just want to be a normal guy who’s filming normal stuff who happens to be a race car driver and just inviting everyone in to see what that’s like.
Does anybody around you question the commitment level? Because it sounds like you’re really committed to this, and they’re like, “Are you sure you want to do this?”
(Laughs) Yeah, I mean a few people like some of my teammates and stuff are like, “Man, you just walk around and video everything and yourself and it’s gotta be timed and it’s awkward?” I’m like, “Yeah, it is.” But when I go back and I watch the video or I watch something that I felt like was awkward but I just acted through it, basically, I watch it like, “Man, that was actually really good.” So I try to be comfortable and just not really care as much about what I’m filming. Like now, I’ll just walk through the airport, I’ll walk to dinner, I’ll walk on the street and I’ll just be filming and recording and I don’t really care.
Are people looking at you funny?
Yeah, people are like, “What is that guy doing?” So now, because I capture a lot of stuff on my phone other than my actual camera, I think people just think that I’m Snapchatting or posting an Instagram story or something; they don’t really know. I’m like, “They don’t know what I’m doing, so whatever, it doesn’t matter.”
Let’s talk about a few other social media networks. You touched on Twitter. How much are you on Twitter, looking at tweets?
I probably look at Twitter everyday. I read something the other day that’s like people look at their phone within the first 10 minutes of waking up or something, but I would say I’m probably one of those people. I mean, that’s where I get most of my news. I don’t really watch the news on TV, I’m not searching the web or anything, I’m not really on BuzzFeed now.
Lindsey (Giannini, his girlfriend) is obsessed with BuzzFeed; I looked at her data the other day and 78% of it was from BuzzFeed. So, I was giving her a hard time about that because BuzzFeed is just kind of ridiculous. They do a great job and there’s some good news on there and the quizzes are fun, but BuzzFeed, you’re taking over my girlfriend’s life, so please, settle down!
But Twitter, I’m on there and usually I try to answer every fan, too. I don’t have an insane amount of followers yet — like I said, I’m almost at 10,000 — so if someone asks me something, I usually answer. Or if somebody gives me a compliment or whatever, I’ll like the tweet. I always try to interact with everyone as best as I can, you know?
I had a lot of people talking to me this past week about the NBA playoffs and the NHL playoffs, too, because I posted one tweet where I was like, “Man, the NBA playoffs are awesome.” And then people were like, “No, watch hockey!” And people were talking about like, “No, what are you talking about? Watch basketball!” I’m like, “Guys, I watch both, calm down.” But I think that’s what’s cool about Twitter — being able to interact with fans instantly. It’s kind of like texting, but through the Internet.
You touched on Instagram. Do you prefer Instagram stories or Snapchat stories?
When Instagram first put out their stories, I was like, “Come on guys, stop stealing other people’s things. It’s just kind of getting ridiculous.” Like on all social media, there’s a giant war going on that none of us even know it happening between all of them.
But I look at all the Instagram stories because I get bored and I’ve already scrolled through so many pictures on Instagram. If I’m on a flight or waiting to get on the plane or at a restaurant by myself, whatever, I scroll though it. So I’ll look through everyone’s stories, but for me, I like Snapchat a little bit better.
Plus, they’re the original guys. It’s kind of like my favorite Mexican food restaurant, well one of them, it’s the original Ninfa’s in Houston and the original is just better than all the chain Ninfa’s around. All my friends are on Snapchat, so we just use Snapchat.
I kind of agree with you in that even though there’s more people on Instagram, I prefer Snapchat. I almost get annoyed when people post Instagram stories. It’s kind of like, “Great, now I have to look at this.”
You have to look at it twice! And now Facebook has stories, too. Did you see that? So it’s like, “What’s happening?” And that’s what’s interesting, too, that’s why I come back to YouTube all the time because YouTube’s like you can make a mini movie. It’s like making stories and people are seeing what you’re doing and it’s kind of like a vlog through your story, but on YouTube there’s this content that is there forever, and you can always go back and look at it.
I think that’s one thing for me that’s special, because I’m recording all these moments in my career as I’m moving forward and I’m always gonna have that to go back and look on, which is pretty cool.
How do people subscribe to your channel if they’re listening and they’re not huge YouTubers?
If you just go to YouTube.com and you search “Brennan Poole,” my channel actually will come up and you can click on it. It’ll list all my vlogs, you’ll see all of them. You’ll also see some other random videos in there, perhaps me crashing somebody a few years ago, or Talladega race is very common with my name if you search it, but my videos are there.
And in the video I give you an option at the end of the newer vlogs that you can click there to subscribe, and basically when you have a YouTube profile and you subscribe to a channel, it’ll give you a notification whenever I post a new video.
This interview is sponsored by Dover International Speedway. If you’re planning to attend the Dover race in June, please consider using my ticket link. Thanks!
The 12 Questions series of interviews continues this week with Kyle Larson of Chip Ganassi Racing. I spoke to Larson at Bristol Motor Speedway. This interview is available as a podcast and is also transcribed below.
1. How much of your success is based on natural ability and how much has come from working at it?
I would say up until I got to NASCAR, it was probably all natural and I didn’t have to work at anything. But once you get here, it’s really tough and everybody else is working hard, so you have to at least do what they’re doing to try and become better. A lot of that is studying. I still don’t really work out, but I try to do that a little bit. So it’s become more of having to work for it when you get to this level, but still natural ability takes over everything else.
2. Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards have all retired in the last couple years. What’s your pitch for fans of theirs to become fans of yours?
I’m very similar to — I guess all of them kind of have an open-wheel background, so I got that going for me. I’m kind of a throwback racer where I’ll race anything as long as I’m allowed to, and I would love to race every day of the week if I could. So I would say I’m one of the only real racers left out here. So that can be my pitch, that I’m the last true racer.
3. What is the hardest part of your job away from the racetrack?
It’s probably that our season is so long and our weeks are so short. There’s so much stuff that you want to get done during the week and it’s hard to accomplish all that. There’s lots of times where I see what my friends are doing, and I’d love to be doing what they’re doing, but our weekends are kind of our weekdays and our weekdays are weekends, where it’s opposite of everybody else in the world. I would say that part of it is probably the toughest part.
4. A fan spots you eating dinner in a nice restaurant. Should they come over for an autograph or no?
Yeah, as long as our main dish isn’t on the table, I think you can definitely come over. I’m not like a germaphobe or anything, either, so I’m not afraid to shake hands as long as they’re a decent-looking human being. But yeah, as long as our main dish isn’t on the table, feel free to come over.
So as long as the guy doesn’t have flies circling around him or something like that, it’s OK?
Yeah. If it’s not 105 degrees outside, as long as you’re not sweaty and greasy, you can come over and I’ll shake your hand.
5. What’s a story in NASCAR that doesn’t get enough coverage?
I think you guys all cover the sport very well — good and bad. There’s some stuff that probably shouldn’t be covered that gets covered. But I wish I would see more good stuff about sprint car racing rather than all the negative stuff (about deaths and injuries) because that’s some of the purest form of racing. All the media kind of covers is the negative, so I wish that we would get more of the exciting part of it and how it develops great race car drivers rather than the tragedies.
The mainstream media doesn’t cover it every week; they see the danger, they see the accidents and then that gets written up.
Yeah, it’s easier to get people to read your posts when you have a title that is touching a negative topic rather than, “Oh, there was an awesome race in Illinois this weekend.” It’s easier to get someone to click on your link when it’s got some negative in it, so I wish there was more positive stuff about the sprint cars.
6. Who is the last driver you texted?
Probably (Ricky) Stenhouse or Denny (Hamlin). I think we’re actually in a group text about golf, so probably those two.
How’s your golf game?
My golf game is really bad. Those two are really good. Denny shot a 74 (on Thursday), so two over par, and Ricky was five over par, so they’re good. I wish I could be 10 strokes better than I am, but I shot 101.
7. Do you consider race car drivers to be entertainers?
I guess we are in a way, but I don’t think of myself as an entertainer. I think there are some other drivers that do think of themselves as entertainers. (Grins)
But for me, racing is just my love and my hobby more than anything. I know it’s my job, but I just do it to have fun. But at the same time, I guess we are entertainers where we’re in front of big audiences live at the track and on TV as well. So yeah, I guess we’re entertainers, but I don’t try to entertain outside the car.
8. What is your middle finger policy on the racetrack?
I don’t feel like I normally give the middle finger to a lot of people, but if you’re like four seconds off the pace and you’re multiple laps down and you hold me up, you’re probably gonna get the middle finger. Thankfully there’s no good drivers that ever really get the finger, so I would say that’s my middle finger policy. Just don’t hold me up.
So it’s reserved for the scrubs, basically.
Yeah, I guess you could say that.
9. Some drivers keep a payback list in their minds. Do you also have a list for drivers who have done you a favor on the track?
You keep a payback list for sure, but you also have a list of guys that you probably don’t race as hard. I think of Matt Kenseth: He’s somebody who’s a veteran and understands give-and-take, and I’ve learned a lot from him of when’s the right time to be aggressive and when not to be.
So you’ve got guys like him where if they’re faster, you just let them go and then they repay the favor later in the race. But when it gets down to the end of it, you can race really hard. I would say most of us young guys are probably not the best at the whole give-and-take thing, but we can learn a lot off of those guys.
10. Who is the most famous person you’ve had dinner with?
Probably Danica. You know, (Larson and girlfriend Katelyn Sweet) are great friends with Ricky and Danica, so we go out to dinner with them all the time. We probably eat dinner at their motorhome more than anything because she’s a great cook. But it doesn’t matter where we’re at — we could be at the middle of nowhere and somebody recognizes her.
It’s funny too, because they’ll see her and not have a clue who Ricky and I are, so it’s pretty funny. So yeah, I would say she’s probably the most famous person I’ve had dinner with. I know she likes being noticed out in public, too, so it probably makes her feel good that she’s the famous person with us.
Does she ever get free desserts or anything from the waiters?
Yeah, there’s a lot of times when we’ll go to a restaurant and they’ll bring out free appetizers that aren’t even on the menu that the chef wants to cook up for her. So yeah, it has its perks to be friends with Danica for sure.
11. What’s something about yourself you’d like to improve?
Probably staying motivated to do the not-fun stuff of our sport. I guess going back to the work part of it, being motivated for that stuff. You know, I guess when you grow up racing, the racing thing is all you do and it’s natural ability — you don’t have to work at it too hard. But like I said, when you get here, it’s a lot more work and staying motivated to put the effort into being a little bit better is important, and there’s a lot time times I slack off on that. So I would say probably staying motivated to do the business/work part of it.
12. The last interview was with Daniel Suarez, and he wanted to know: If a competitive young driver came to you and asked for advice, how much would you tell him? Would you tell him 100% of what you know, or would you tell him like 90%? How much would you offer?
I always try to be extremely honest whenever anybody asks me anything. And honestly, there’s not a whole lot of people that go around asking for advice. I guess it would be the young guys. At Homestead last year, I felt like half the Truck Series was calling me, trying to get around Homestead because I go really good there.
I remember last Atlanta, I was extremely fast in practice before qualifying because I was running a different line in (Turns) 1 and 2, and Kyle Busch was asking me how hard I would run up there and why I would split the seams and stuff like that. I gave him an honest answer, and he got the pole and I qualified bad.
But yeah, I’m always extremely honest. I think coming from a dirt background, it’s easier for us to be honest — where people who grew up in pavement racing, it seems like pavement racers are more secretive than dirt racers.
The next interview is with Elliott Sadler. Do you have a question I can ask him?
He’s been around, he’s seen it all in every series. I feel like the average age has gone down a lot lately in every series. So how has he seen the style of racing change with the average age going down?
This 12 Questions interview is sponsored by Dover International Speedway. If you’re planning to attend the Dover race in June, please consider using my ticket link. Thanks!
Silence blanketed the Hendrick Motorsports Team Center building Tuesday afternoon for three long minutes before Dale Earnhardt Jr. strode across the stage wearing a suit and tie.
Hardly anyone said a word. No music played. Just silence, save for the sound of people shifting in their chairs.
What was about to come in an hour-long news conference to discuss Earnhardt’s decision to retire? The tone was unclear, but it seemed like he could handle it in a variety of different ways.
Perhaps he’d be excited and buoyant, pumped about the future after making a decision to step away.
Maybe he’d get choked up, overcome with emotion over realizing his full-time racing career was coming to an end.
Or he could bring a motivational angle to the speech, trying to cheer his massive fan base and tell them everything was going to be OK.
In reality, it wasn’t any of those things. While Earnhardt said he was at peace with his decision and was happy with his career, he was solemn and “spun out” because he was fretting over how the news would be received by his fans.
Typical Earnhardt. A man driven by a fear of letting anyone down and a sense of duty to those he loves spent his retirement news conference thinking about other people instead of himself.
By the time he took the stage, most of those close to him had already been informed. He made a round of phone calls Monday night, breaking the news to a variety of people.
His fans, though, didn’t know until the news was made public Tuesday morning. And he was nervous as to how they’d react, because he didn’t want to bring them any pain.
“I’m very sad because I know that it’s definitely disappointing for a lot of people to wake up to that news this morning,” he said. “I know we’ve got a lot of fans that are very sad, for lack of a better way to describe it.
“So I feel that emotion as well, that what I’ve announced today has had that effect on a lot of people.”
Indeed, it was a tough day for his fans. Those on Twitter used words like “lost” and “heartbroken” to describe their emotions, spending the day crying their eyes out. People compared it to a breakup; others described it, sincerely, as one of the saddest days they’d experienced.
Those who aren’t hardcore Earnhardt fans might scoff at such reactions, but they’re very real. Even those fans who never met Earnhardt feel like they know him, because he speaks their language and they feel a connection — even if it’s a one-way relationship.
Earnhardt knows this, of course. He’s seen countless people rendered speechless or moved to tears by meeting him over the years. So even if the emotions seem silly to outsiders, Earnhardt wasn’t taking them lightly on Tuesday.
That he cares so much is a testament to why he became popular in the first place.
But after the initial shock, his fans may discover it’s not really the end. First, there are 28 more races this year where they get to say goodbye — a chance not all fans get (just ask Carl Edwards supporters).
Then, there are future races — at least two in the Xfinity Series next season and probably more to come — which will ease the transition for everyone.
Plus, he’ll still be around — just in a different capacity, he said. And that thought might help some fans dry their tears.
“I really enjoy making people happy,” he said. “I think I can replicate that in the next chapter of my life.”
One of the hot topics in the wake of Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s retirement announcement has been: Is NASCAR in trouble?
It’s a fair question, because the up-and-coming drivers don’t seem to have the same sort of big, magnetic personalities drivers like Earnhardt, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon had.
There are a lot of opinions on this, but a very important one comes from NASCAR itself. Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s executive vice president and the guy who basically runs the show these days, attended Tuesday’s news conference and answered a few questions afterward, saying he was optimistic about the future of the sport.
Among his answers:
— The current crop of young drivers do have personalities that will attract fans, O’Donnell believes, but “they’ve got to win” more often in order for fans and media to recognize that.
“People like winners,” he said. “We’ve taken some steps in the Xfinity Series to move out some of the Cup drivers. The reason for that is we want drivers exposed to winning — (then) they’re interviewed more, people get to see their personalities.”
O’Donnell said there’s “no doubt” the drivers’ personalities will be exposed as they start to have more success.
— It’s one thing for NASCAR to be more involved with developing personalities and scheduling TV show appearances or similar opportunities, but there’s only so much the sanctioning body can do. At some point, O’Donnell said, the drivers have to step up and “take those personalities outside the sport.”
“It’s important for us to work together, but it’s also on the drivers,” he said. “They’ve got to want to do some of these things outside of the sport to help grow the sport as well.”
— O’Donnell is comforted by the fact Earnhardt isn’t going away and wants to remain part of the sport. He believes Earnhardt can continue to help NASCAR develop the young drivers’ personalities, both as an Xfinity Series team owner and other ways that haven’t yet come to light.
In addition, O’Donnell feels Earnhardt will continue to give feedback on NASCAR’s direction (as Jeff Burton and Jeff Gordon have in retirement).
“He’s not hesitant to send you a message every day on, ‘Here’s what I thought about the race’ or ‘Here’s some ideas you all need to explore,'” O’Donnell said. “He cares about the long-term health of the sport. And I think the other drivers he’s interacted with, especially the younger drivers, see that and know that’s important going forward.”
The news just broke, so I’m still collecting my thoughts, but here are some early reactions:
— We all knew Earnhardt would stop probably racing within the next few years, but it’s still really jarring now that the news is real. To see the words “Dale Earnhardt Jr.” and “retiring” sort of leaves a pit in the feeling of your stomach, because it’s really the end of an era. When you take into account that a very large percentage of NASCAR fans are part of Junior Nation, there will be many people who feel lost, saddened and unsure of where this leaves them now. The positive for them is they’ll have 28 more races to watch their favorite driver and prepare to say goodbye instead of just dealing with a sudden departure.
— In February of last year, I tagged along with Dale Jr. for a day to visit one of his car dealerships in Florida. The conversation turned to how much longer he might want to race (this was before the concussion) and something he said has stuck with me.
“I’m in great cars,” he said then. “How long will I have great cars? When I’m not in great cars anymore, driving cars might not be fun. I’ve saved my money, so I don’t have to be doing this. But I love it, because I’ve got great cars.”
We’ll find out more about his reasons during a retirement news conference later today, but he doesn’t seem to be having as much fun this year. His team isn’t running well or getting good finishes and he’s already in a big hole for making the playoffs — and it’s still only April.
It makes sense that would ask himself: Do I really want to do this all of this year and next year if I’m not going to be running up front and winning?
I don’t have any insight into his reasoning, but I’m guessing that played some sort of role.
— One driver does not make a sport. But Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Earnhardt made up a trifecta of star power — with Earnhardt being arguably the biggest star NASCAR has ever had — that transcended racing and could reach across the lines of sports and pop culture.
No, NASCAR isn’t going to die just because Earnhardt is leaving — nor will it be on life support. But NASCAR is sick, and it’s serious.
After Gordon left, there was unquestionably an impact on NASCAR attendance, TV ratings and interest. Some fans followed him throughout his career and were putting up with things they didn’t like about NASCAR just because they wanted to still watch their favorite driver. Once he was gone, they stopped watching and attending.
The same will happen with Earnhardt, but perhaps on a larger scale. That’s not good for a sport that’s already been struggling.
Thanks to the TV deal where FOX and NBC overpaid by billions, NASCAR (and the tracks, which get TV money) will be stable financially for awhile. But these next five or so years will be absolutely crucial in the sport’s history, because now is the time where NASCAR either builds new superstars or continues to trend downward.
Look, Earnhardt wasn’t going to be around for much longer regardless of whether it was this year or a couple years, so the time was coming when NASCAR would have to figure out how to exist without leaning on him. As it turns out, that time is starting in 2018.
— It’s a relief to know that Earnhardt will (hopefully) be leaving the sport by his own choice — not one made by doctors.
During that interview last year in Florida, he said: “The one thing I’m scared of is you’re physically injured and it just ends. It’s jerked out from under you. You don’t want that. You want it to be on your terms. Like, ‘Alright man, I think I’m done.’ You get months to mentally absorb it. If it’s thrown right there in your lap and it’s like it’s over, that’d be so emotional.”
When he suffered the concussion last summer that made him miss half the season, it seemed like a very real possibility he might not be able to race again — and that the end of his career wouldn’t be on his terms.
Now, as long as he stays healthy for the remainder of the season, Earnhardt will be able to climb out of the car in the way he wants. All the hard work it took for him to come back in the first place has to be more than worth it for him in that regard.
— Oh, so what about his replacement? The logical choice would be Alex Bowman, because he’s already worked with the 88 team and done well there (he almost won Phoenix, remember?). Bowman at least deserves a shot, and future star William Byron wouldn’t be hurt by spending another year in the Xfinity Series anyway.
But at the same time, I’m sure there are MANY drivers outside Hendrick Motorsports who would literally give up their pinkie toe for a chance to drive the 88 car, so perhaps it’s not so obvious.
— On a personal and professional level, I’m really going to miss covering Earnhardt. There’s something about his combination of candor, wit and humility that makes him the best interview in sports (at least that I’ve seen), and you really can’t replace a guy like that.
Dale Jr. is a normal dude trapped in a superstar’s life, and his fans identify with him because he acts and talks like they would if they found themselves in a similar situation.
Over the years, I’ve found Earnhardt to be respectful and genuine and someone who doesn’t try to hide behind corporate speak. There’s nothing fake about him, and people seem to connect with that. There’s a very sincere quality there, which is something you don’t find all that often with people of Earnhardt’s celebrity status.
The people who claimed Earnhardt was popular because of his last name have always missed the point. While the name may have led to his initial opportunity in the sport, he was able to cultivate an ever-growing fan base and keep it over time because of the person he is — not his name.
