Top 100 Best Dale Earnhardt Jr. Quotes and Achievements

Ralph Dale Earnhardt Jr. (born October 10, 1974) is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver, team owner, author, and an analyst for NASCAR on NBC.

He competes part-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the #8 Chevrolet Camaro for his team JR Motorsports.

He is the son of the late Dale Earnhardt Sr., who was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. 

Top 100 Best Dale Earnhardt Jr. Quotes

1. I like to sit around the pool, listen to music, barbecue, grill, stuff like that. Just the guy next door, I guess.
2. I was in therapy as a child and definitely think that therapy is a very useful tool.
3. My favorite thing to do... is to get my big trailer grill and smoke some meat and sit around with my buddies all day for 12 hours cooking that and then eat at the end of the day.
4. I'm sure it's the same whether you lost your parent at 25 or 45. When they die, the responsibility to do right by them and honor them becomes more important to you, because they're not here to tell you, 'Hey man, don't be doing that,' or, 'Yeah, you're making me proud, or you're not.'
5. Some people ain't approachable, and some people are.
6. I'm not a huge fan of North Carolina barbecue. I like Memphis style barbecue and Kansas City.
7. I look at my trophies and can't believe they're mine.
8. As a race car driver, you kind of get stereotyped into, 'Man, you like country' - or you got to say you like country. I do like a lot of country. But I'm all over the board.
9. Winning the championship is more than 50% driver. It's probably 60% driver, 40% car. I don't really know where luck fits in there - over the course of a season, everybody catches their breaks.
10. I just didn't look at myself with a lot of confidence. I didn't think, 'Man I'm a great driver. Boy, just give me a shot.'
11. I've always wanted to win a championship so badly.
12. For the longest time, I was just real nervous about privacy and people prying into my personal business.
13. I didn't start driving race cars because of the fame or the money, but the most rewarding factor is being complimented on what you do, and your fans are always the first to do that.
14. Oh yeah, I've been in therapy in and out of my whole life.
15. Being a dad is great. Every day there's something new.
16. I enjoy learning how to cook because I like to eat. Eating is good. Eating is fun.
17. There is nothing like winning a race.
18. I wish Michael Schumacher would come try NASCAR. That'd be cool.
19. I've never wished I was anybody else.
20. That's one thing that frustrates me is to hear people today say I don't have passion; my heart's not in it. Man, what the hell? You can't go to 38 races in 42 weeks with your heart out of it.
21. In my eyes, Joe Gibbs could do no wrong.
22. When you have a concussion, one of the symptoms that is common is anxiety. Imagine having the normal amount of anxieties that everybody shares - about life and meeting people in social spaces, whatever. Imagine that being multiplied by 10, 20. And so your worry over people's perceptions of you multiplies.
23. I like 'Man v. Food,' 'Diners Drive-ins and Dives.' 'Restaurant Impossible' is pretty good, too.
24. I just Google whatever the hell I want to cook, and I try to cook it by what they tell me to do. If it's not good, I don't eat it.
25. If I were to finish my career without a title, I would certainly be disappointed. But I don't think it would be something that would eat away at me... I think I certainly would be able to live with it.
26. I keep sour grapes in the fridge all the time. And I eat those all day long, all week long, all month. All the time.
27. When you're around a sport awhile and sort of get to know everybody, you start to appreciate people more instead of just seeing a number and a sponsor and a competitor.
28. I was way behind in my maturity. I was a 30-year-old acting like a 23-year-old. So when I was 21, I was probably acting like a 15-year-old.
29. Man, I was a troubled kid. I was going to get kicked out of a Christian school and got sent to military school for a year and a half, and I didn't really have much direction until I got the opportunity to drive race cars.
30. I get asked one question a lot: 'What celebrity encounter would render you starstruck?' The answer is simple - anyone who's ever strapped on a Redskins helmet, much less coached them to three Super Bowls.
31. My role models weren't holding steering wheels and mashing gears on Sunday. They wore burgundy and gold with names like Art Monk and Darrell Green.
32. My habit is to get real competitive and make racing probably more work than it is enjoyable, and I put a lot of pressure on myself, and I feel like there's pressure from the outside - it's probably not real, but it's something I imagine.
33. I can't remember ever racing without any pressure.
34. Nothing will ever feel like winning a Daytona 500. I'm never going to do anything in broadcasting, probably anything in any other professional job that will feel like winning the Daytona 500.
35. I grew up around it. That was what my friends were listening to - some of my closest friends are big hip-hop fans.
36. Normally, on the rare chance that a celebrity comes to my property, I get real nervous.
37. My grandmother was a big Elvis fan, and I am, too, because she played Elvis, and she would keep me all the time when my dad was out of town.
38. There was this guy I used to work with, and he listened to Patsy Cline all the time, so I liked that after a while.
39. You ask me about tragic accidents? If I am on my tractor at my farm and it rolls over on me and kills me, that's a tragic accident. If I die in a race car, that's life. I died doing what I love.
40. If you're not a race driver, stay the hell home. Don't come here and grumble about going too fast. Get the hell out of the race car if you've got feathers on your legs or butt. Put a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat that candy ass.
41. You can't let one bad moment spoil a bunch of good ones.
42. Second place is just the first loser.
43. Winning isn't everything to me, but it's a close second. Losing isn't something that I can just brush off and fake a smile to hide my frustration. It's that will and determination that I hope will get me where I want to go.
44. The winner ain't the one with the fastest car. It's the one who refuses to lose.
    
45. The only way to be productive is to be positive.
    
46. If my wheel comes off and I hit the fence real hard, I get to whack every damn one of you with a hammer.
    
47. I've already done enough to have earned 'good driver,' so if I can be known as a great person and a good driver, that's better than only being a great driver.
    
48. That's life. You've got to deal with it, good and bad. We'll be all right. I mean, if we make the chase, we make it. If we don't, we don't.
    
49. I'm just trying not to get run over. That's number one. Number two is you going to catch the guy in front of you.
50. I always have fun. I don't really go without fun too long.
    
51. Tried on daddy's 1979 rookie firesuit a while back. Smelled every bit of 36 years old.
    
52. My father could look straight ahead but concentrate on something on the very edge of his vision, almost nearly behind him.
    
53. I mean, I've always felt like a lot of people's misconceptions of me have to do with how I grew up. I grew up poor, and I grew up rich. I think some people who have never met me have a misconception that when I was living with my father when he was successful, that I was somehow adversely affected by his success or the money he had and was making at the time.
    
54. In what other sport do you get a 15-second break every hour?
    
55. There's some sort of a big BBQ on here in turn three. There's smoke all over the track! Some fan's got a big one going on.
    
56. I felt like the track came to us, but then it went beyond us.
    
57. I don't mind at all being approached when I'm 10 or more feet away from the car. If I'm anywhere away from the car, I'm fine. That's completely expected. But when I'm next to the car or within 10 feet of it, I'm thinking about that or working in that direction. And that's just something I'd rather be able to work on than be interrupted, really, by anybody.
    
58. With everything he's done and how professional he's remained through it all, I think he's an awesome role model as far as work ethic and tenacity.
59. He just seems like he knows how to get it done.
    
60. The car drives really really good so far. No changes on the next pit stop.
61. It's great, I can hold it down right along the bottom here in the corners I'm just riding around out here just waiting until later to make a move
    
62. The whole cap came off.. must've been a recap.
    
63. You would not believe how loose this car is for two laps after the green. Then, just like that, it's back to how it was before. But, those first few laps, damn, it's loose! JUNIOR NO LIKEY!
    
64. Everything we do needs to be geared toward making the sport [auto racing] more accessible to the fans - the rules of the sport, how the race plays itself out, how people qualify into the races - everything needs to be as easy to understand as possible.
    
65. I don't think I can adequately express my feelings about the car on national radio, but hopefully we'll get better and I'll be happier later on.
    
66. "I don't like going on stage. Stages mean ""nervous"" for me."
    
67. Being a broadcaster, man, you just sort of paint from a blank canvas, in a way.
    
68. Getting up in front and talking to the people who build my cars is the worst. I get so damn nervous.
69. I always make things worse than they are or create problems that aren't there. And going and doing some simple task becomes a problem. I start imagining problems that aren't there. What people are going to think, who's going to judge me and am I going to be good enough? Am I worthy?
70. I've done everything I ever thought I would do. I've done more than I thought I was capable of doing.
71. Death is a weird thing.
72. There's broadcasters that make me enjoy what I'm seeing because of their energy and how they explain what's happening and paint that picture.
73. As a driver, it was easy to find the negative in things. But when I got out of the car, everything about the sport, my whole perception of just about everything in the sport, did a 180.
74. The 1979 Daytona 500 was awesome. It was almost like the first race that Ken Squier ever did. And so he was sort of introducing himself as well as the sport.
75. I didn't think I was ever going to be a Cup driver. When I was a kid, before I started racing in the Xfinity Series, I thought that I was never going to get a chance, and then, if I did, I wasn't going to run well enough to maintain that opportunity and keep progressing.
76. I've been able to make a lot of money and live a lifestyle that I never dreamed of. And I've been able to provide for my family.
77. I never thought I would ever win a Daytona 500. I never thought we would sweep Bristol. I just never thought any of that stuff was going to happen or be possible.
78. To me, I feel completely, um, utterly normal. I do everything everybody else does.
79. I'm competitive, man. Competitive.
80. I can cook anything. Anything. I'm good.
81. If I don't like the car, I don't get excited about racing it.
82. Orange is my favorite color overall.
83. Regardless of how I act, somebody is going to criticize me one way or the other.
84. I don't know of any other driver on the track that doesn't get hot under the collar.
85. You don't talk to Richard Petty unless he talks to you.
86. Every sport has a 'guy' that personifies what the sport is about and almost creates what the sport is on his own.
87. I am proud of the Earnhardt name, but it don't stand alone. You know, it's part of the sport, with all those other historic people that have been a part of it, and you don't want people to forget the part you had in it and what you did and the contributions you made and the sacrifices you made.
88. That's something that is important to me, that people know me and understand me.
89. All these tracks you have memories at, all of them, Daytona included.
90. I want to continue to be a part of the sport, and not just as an owner in the Nascar Xfinity Series. I want to be a valuable asset to the growth of the sport and continue to help raise the bar and raise the awareness of the sport and promote the sport as much as I can.
91. When I was a kid, one thing I counted on was rushing home from church to catch the start of the race. There's something really awesome about that routine.
92. I've been with some great teams and had good wins and great success at certain periods of time in my career.
93. I always think about my dad. He's always in the back of my mind. That helps me make good decisions. It has an influence on my life in every decision and everything I do.
94. I definitely find myself, as I get older, a lot more aware and concerned with the health of the sport.
95. I love running good because it meets expectations, whether it's the fans' or my own. And I know that they come to be entertained: they pull for a particular driver to be entertained by that driver's success and that driver's personality, and they relate to that individual.
96. When I run a race, I, may inadvertently or unknowingly, concern myself with whether the fan was entertained or got what he expected or whether they got what I think they deserved out of me and out of the race.
97. I would have loved to race from 1970 to 1980.
98. The Dodge Charger in the late '70s at Daytona, that looked like an awesome car.
99. I always liked 'The Last American Hero,' the one about Junior Johnson with Jeff Bridges in it.
100. I used to have stomach ulcers and stuff when I was in the 10th grade. I'd be doubled over on the floor, I was hurting so bad. I was on Tagamet before it was over the counter.
101. 'Castaway' is my favorite movie, and any time I read about a castaway or a story like that, it just interests me a lot.
102. I use my notes app on my iPhone religiously, and I have one note just for movies. Every time I see a movie I think I'm going to want to watch, I'll put it in there.
103. I wish I'd a got married sooner. I wish I'd a had kids sooner. I wish I'd a figured all that out sooner.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Achievements

• 1998: Wins the Busch Grand National Series points championship for the first time at the age 24.
• 1999: Wins his second Busch Series points title.
• 2000: Earns his first Winston Cup victory at DirecTV 500 in Fort Worth, Texas. The victory came in just his 12th career Winston Cup start.
• 2001: In the first race held at Daytona International Speedway since his father was killed in a crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500, Earnhardt Jr. wins the Pepsi 400. He jumps to the hood of his car after the race, throws his fists in the air and then hugs 2001 Daytona 500 champion and Dale Earnhardt Inc. teammate Michael Waltrip.
• 2001: In the first NASCAR event since the 9/11 attacks, Earnhardt wins the Cal Ripken Jr. 400 at Dover, Delaware. He carries a large American flag during his victory lap.
• 2003: Captures Aaron's 499 title to win at Talladega Superspeedway for a record fourth straight time.
• 2004: Earns his first Daytona 500 title exactly six years to the day after his father's lone Daytona 500 championship. One of his career-high six titles that season.
• 2004: Wins an October race at Talladega but gets fined $10,000 and is docked 25 points for swearing during an NBC interview after the race. Penalty drops him out of the lead in the points race at the time.
• 2007: Announces he is moving from Dale Earnhardt Inc. to Hendrick Motorsports, effective in 2008.
• 2008: Ends a 76-race title drought by winning at Michigan International Speedway when he goes the final 55 laps without stopping for gas.
• 2012: Ends another long drought at Michigan again when he earns his first Sprint Cup victory since 2008. He had gone 143 races without a title.
• 2014: Captures his second Daytona 500 title in a race that included a rain delay lasting 6 hours, 22 minutes. Launches a comeback year in which Earnhardt also records season sweep at Pocono Raceway (also launches Twitter account that now has over 2 million followers).
• 2015: Wins the Coke Zero 400 in another rain-delayed race at Daytona for his 10th career victory on a restrictor-plate track. He would earn his 26th - and most recent - career victory later that year in Phoenix.
• 2016: Named NASCAR's most popular driver for a 14th consecutive season despite missing half the year due to concussion-like symptoms. Bill Elliott is the only person to be named the most popular driver more often.
• 2017: Announces on April 25 that he will retire at the end of the season.