After years of driving round and round, NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt Jr. climbed out of his car, joined NBC Sports and hit the road.
“We just haven’t said no to anything,” Earnhardt said one afternoon this week, shortly after appearances on the “Today” show, “The Dan Patrick Show” and “Megyn Kelly Today” but before beating Jimmy Fallon in a cooler scooter race on “The Tonight Show.”
En route to his scheduled debut as a regular race commentator at Joliet’s Chicagoland Speedway with Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series Overton’s 300 on NBCSN and Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Overton’s 400 on NBC-5, Earnhardt couldn’t have veered farther afield than a dad refusing to pull over for directions on a family vacation.
So there was Dale Jr. as part of the network’s Super Bowl coverage from Minneapolis, then the Winter Olympics from Pyeongchang, South Korea, then the Stanley Cup Final. All that kept him from the Kentucky Derby was a detour to the delivery room, where he and his wife, Amy, welcomed their first child, Isla Rose Earnhardt.
And while racing fans awaited his return to NASCAR coverage, DIY Networks in June introduced “Renovation Realities: Dale Jr. & Amy,” detailing their efforts to rehab a dilapidated 150-year-old home on Florida’s Key West.
“Now we finally get to go to the racetrack and talk about racing for a change,” Earnhardt said. “I didn’t know what I was going to be doing once I got out of the car, how interested people would be to work with me and what opportunities would pop up.
“If we could fit it into our schedule and it sounded fun and made sense from a brand perspective, we chose to do it, and obviously there was a lot of stuff. The DIY show is a perfect example. Anytime you can get involved in something that’s completely out of the box, where people don’t expect to see you, that’s the best way to connect to new fans and create new fans.”
In some ways, it was a throwback to Earnhardt’s early days in racing, when he was trying to establish an identity apart from his legendary dad, Dale Sr., and was eager to jump on opportunities such as an appearance on MTV’s “Cribs.”
“We like to take NASCAR fans to new places, but it’s more mostly about trying to take NASCAR to places where it hasn’t been before,” Earnhardt said.
NASCAR could use a bump. NBC picks up its 20-race portion of the 36-race Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season with Fox’s ratings for its races reportedly down more than 20 percent from the 2017 season.
Earnhardt’s return to a familiar milieu if an unfamiliar new position in the booth above the track — discounting guest announcing he did while recovering from a concussion during the 2016 season — is being promoted by NBC as “Same Dale. New View.”
Unlike most competitors in most sports, racers don’t often find themselves watching their sport on TV. If there’s a race, they’re usually in it, whereas baseball, football, hockey and basketball players can see plenty of games when they’re not suited up.
But Earnhardt, who has prepped with race announcer and fellow analysts Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte (the latter Earnhardt’s former crew chief) on four practice telecasts off monitors, is unconcerned.
“Sometimes coming in inexperienced and unknowing is a good way to go too,” he said. “But it’s racing. I’m talking about something I love and something that I enjoy.
“They’re not asking me to be a play-by-play guy. They’re not asking me to send it to commercials and do all those things I don’t know how to do yet. … Coming in they just want me to react to what I see and give an honest reaction and an honest opinion. That sounds pretty simple.”
For example, asked about the Joliet track, Earnhardt said it has a couple of pronounced bumps because of tunnels underneath. One is heading into Turn 1, the other between 3 and 4.
“That’s a real challenge for the crews to get the cars comfortable with because they’re so severe,” Earnhardt said. “You could drive across them in a street car and not hardly notice them, but in a racecar it feels like you’re driving down a set of stairs.
“The other aspect of the track that stands out to me is that it has multiple grooves where you can run from the apron all the way to the fence. … Not a lot of tracks provide that wide of a groove. This is a lot more exciting. If a guy catches another guy, he can move into a different line in the corner to make that pass and continue on.”
Earnhardt has no regrets about retiring from racing. Occasionally he’ll think of practice runs at a favorite track, then remember how things change after 15 or 20 minutes.
“Then the fun kind of wears off,” Earnhardt said. “You get competitive and you want to figure out how to make yourself better and make yourself faster, and I know how that gets.”
He, however, does plan to get behind the wheel for a Xfinity Series race later this year.
“We have guys who talk to the broadcasters every week, but I want to do in-car reporting during the green flag,” said Earnhardt, who expects it to be no more distracting than talking to a crew chief or spotters. “I certainly won’t be trying to do it when I’m three-wide trying to pass for the lead. I’ll be waiting for an opportunity when there’s a little space around me to maybe give detailed information and feedback and answer questions.”
He also will continue venturing off the NASCAR circuit from time to time.
It has not escaped his attention that NBC is the new home of the Indianapolis 500.
“It would be an experience to go in with an open mind to learn and get a better perspective on what that racing is all about and what those drivers are dealing with,” Earnhardt said. “I’ve never been to the Indy 500. Certainly as a motorsports fan, that’s something you have to experience in your life.”
Oh, and if someone wanted to build a show around his Dale Jr.’s Whisky River Beer & Wings restaurants — a new one just opened in Myrtle Beach, S.C. — that would be just fine with him.
“We certainly do have great food at Whisky River,” he said.
philrosenthal@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @phil_rosenthal
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