Dale Earnhardt Jr builds a legacy of his own

Is there a tougher legacy in motor sport to live up to than Dale Earnhardt? The man known as ‘The Intimidator’ won seven NASCAR Cup Series titles by creating an aura of invincibility, backing up his brimming self-confidence with blatant bullying tactics on the racetrack. Earnhardt’s legacy was cemented by his fatal last-lap crash in the 2001 Daytona 500, a seismic event that shook NASCAR to the core and finally forced the venerable organisation to take a hard look at its safety practices.

By 2001, Dale Earnhardt Jr was a major Cup Series star in his own right, driving for his father’s Dale Earnhardt Inc team in an iconic No8 Chevrolet sponsored by Budweiser. When Dale Sr died, the weight of NASCAR was placed on Dale Jr’s shoulders. He was 26, living a party lifestyle, and it was a responsibility he now admits he couldn’t handle. After a six-win 2004, the victories slowed up, and moving from the family owned DEI to NASCAR powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports only added to the pressure.

While Dale Sr hid emotions behind wraparound sunglasses and the Intimidator persona, Dale Jr found his true character by opening up and being honest about a series of concussions that affected his performance and ultimately caused him to retire from full-time competition at the end of 2017. Earnhardt Jr found a natural role in the television broadcast booth and started the Dirty Mo Media company that is an industry leader in podcasts and other content.

Many years before, Dale Jr founded JR Motorsports, and in 2006, he advanced it into NASCAR’s second-tier championship now known as the Xfinity Series. Earnhardt took a special interest in racers who cut their teeth the way he, his father, and his grandfather Ralph Earnhardt did – in short track competition in the south-east region of the US. Junior especially championed a Tennessee-born driver named Josh Berry, who finally got his Cup Series break in 2024 at the age of 34 with Stewart-Haas Racing only for the team to fold at the end of the season.

“Josh Berry’s victory gave NASCAR its biggest feel-good moment in years”

Berry showed enough in his rookie campaign to land a seat with the legendary Wood Brothers team, which now enjoys technical support from Team Penske, winner of the last three Cup Series championships. At Las Vegas Motor Speedway, in the fifth race of the 2025 campaign, Berry drove the Woods’ familiar No21 Ford to victory and give NASCAR its biggest feel-good moment in years. The popular win offered further evidence that Dale Earnhardt Jr is creating a NASCAR legacy that could ultimately be as important as his father’s.

Elsewhere in this issue you can read about why Chip Ganassi likes winners. In Scott Dixon and Álex Palou, Ganassi employs a pair of drivers who have combined to win nine IndyCar Series championships, and Palou is still just 28 years old. They scored an unlikely 1-2 in the season opening St Petersburg Grand Prix, with Palou ultimately prevailing in a race that Dixon probably should have won.

A first-lap accident and subsequent safety car period allowed the drivers, including Dixon and Palou, who started the race on Firestone’s softer compound alternate tyre to immediately switch to the more durable primary. Limited running in practice and qualifying indicated the alternate tyre would not be competitive over a full 30-lap stint, and it proved a significant handicap for those who were forced to use it for a stint later in the race.

Dixon appeared to be in the best position to collect the win, but he began suffering radio problems midway through the contest. Relying on his low fuel warning light to know when to pit, Dixon left it a lap too long and was slowed by lapped traffic. That allowed Palou to execute an undercut that gave him the lead, which he held to the finish despite being badly held up by backmarker Sting Ray Robb, allowing Josef Newgarden to close right in. Dixon ultimately passed Newgarden for second place on the last lap.

The biggest winner on the day might have been Fox Sports. It claimed a 45% ratings increase over the 2024 race, which was broadcast on NBC. Fox says the St Pete audience of 1.4 million was larger than any IndyCar race outside of the Indianapolis 500 since 2011. That’s great news, of course, but it still ignores the fact that IndyCar racing’s television audience outside of the Indy 500 was typically 2-3 million per race prior to the CART/IRL split in the mid-1990s.

One prominent figure who remains unimpressed by Fox’s promotion of IndyCar as ‘The Fastest Racing on Earth’ is drag racer Bob Tasca, who eviscerated the network in an interview during the broadcast of the NHRA Gatornationals – ironically, tape-delayed on Fox’s second-tier FS1 cable network. Tasca is the unofficial NHRA speed record holder with a 341.68mph pass at an exhibition event in February.

“The fact is that we are the fastest motor sport,” Tasca said. “It’s an insult to our fans and drivers for Fox to go on TV and say ‘The Fastest Motor Sports in the World’ [sic] and it’s IndyCar?” Former NASCAR and IRL IndyCar champion Tony Stewart, who is now racing Top Fuel dragsters, backed Tasca up, saying Fox is engaged in “false advertising”.

Perhaps IndyCar star Scott McLaughlin best captured the spirit of the clash when he posted on social media: “Well, at least the commercials are reaching far and wide,” while encouraging Tasca to tune in.

Based in Indianapolis, John Oreovicz has been covering US racing for 30 years. He is author of the 2021 book Indy Split