See, Dale Jr. really is just like the rest of us.
Whether it’s the beach or a concert or your kid’s elementary school play, most people have probably snuck alcohol in somewhere that you’re not supposed to.
And that includes Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Obviously Dale Jr. is pretty synonymous with beer. He got his start in the NASCAR Cup Series driving the #8 Budweiser Chevrolet, and at one point he had so much beer delivered to his home that distributors thought he was selling it.
So you know when he goes to the beach he’s going to want to crack a cold one or two – even if it’s not allowed.
That’s exactly what happened over Father’s Day weekend when Dale Jr. found himself at the beach near his home with his family, which unfortunately doesn’t allow alcohol. So Dale Jr. had to get creative to hide his beer.
As he explained on this week’s episode of the Dale Jr. Download:
“I got these little things that slide over the beer that make it look like a Mountain Dew or a Dr. Pepper or a Coca-Cola.
I got about six of those and I slide ’em over the beers and throw ’em in the cooler. So you pull ’em out and they’re already disguised.”
And that’s not the only way he smuggles his beer onto the beach:
“They make these bags that you carry, it’s a see-through bag, it’s a beach bag. You put your speaker in there, your phone, your towels, all that sh*t, you fill that thing up. And it’s a beach bag. It sits right there with all your sh*t, it kinda blends right in.
And in the bottom of it though, the bottom’s a cooler. It’s not so much like a hidden cooler but if you don’t know it’s there you’d never look and go, ‘Oh let me see in the cooler at the bottom.’…
So I’m sure the beach patrol has seen many of these things and they know that they exist. But I think if you have that bag sitting there and your beers are in the cooler in the bottom of your bag…
But that’s not enough. If you take that bag out there and you don’t have a true cooler – see, you’ve got to have a real cooler full of drinks that are not alcoholic.
So when the patrol, if they want to stop at your place and say, ‘Hey man, show me what you got.’
Well here’s my cooler, and they’re so distracted by the true cooler and what might be inside it – oh, might be some alcohol in here – they never look at the bag. They never even think about the bag being the thing that has the beer in it.”
The man’s a 15-time Most Popular Driver in NASCAR, a member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame, yet Junior’s out here smuggling beer like he’s a teenager filling his dad’s vodka bottle up with water.
But why go through all that trouble? What’s the worst that could happen if you have a beer on the beach when you’re not supposed to?
Well according to Dale, it’s a $1,000 fine. But for him, it’s worth the risk:
“I like that it’s a non-alcoholic beach. Cause there’s a beach that allows alcohol right next to us. You can see it. You can look up the shoreline and see it, and there’s a bridge that connects the two islands.
And that beach is slammed full. God almighty, you can’t move. You ain’t got no room. So the non-alcoholic beach is not quite as crowded.”
And as you can imagine, Dale says he’s far from the only one who’s actually drinking on the “alcohol-free” beach:
“I mean, there’s people out there holding Dixie cups and I know what the hell’s in that cup. I ain’t gonna be sitting out there drinkin’ water. Kiss my a**, I’m takin’ beer out there…
You’re kidding yourself if you don’t think that 90% of people on the non-alcoholic beach don’t have alcohol out there. Kidding yourself.”
Of course Dale knows the risk he runs, and he’s accepted his fate if he gets caught (which he just might now that he announced all of his tricks to the world on his podcast).
“Hey, if they get me, they get me. I tried.”
Gotta love the commitment. And the fact that even Dale Jr. pulls the same tricks that we’ve all tried.
