It was creative, I’ll give him points for that… a while back on his Dale Jr. Download podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. recalled a hilarious story about the time his father, the legendary Dale Earnhardt Sr., first caught him with a cigarette.
He was well into his 20’s at the time and an adult obviously capable of making his own decisions, but that doesn’t mean his dad approved of them, and even though Jr. tried to hide it, he eventually got caught. For 15-years, Jr. has previously admitted that he smoked a pack-and-a-half-a-day, though he hid it from mostly everyone, though he eventually quit after his wife, Amy, gave him an ultimatum.
It was ahead of the 2001 Rolex 24 at Daytona, and as Jr. explains, his dad hated smoking in general, which is pretty unusual considering he was born in 1951 in rural North Carolina, where tobacco reigned supreme in terms of the economy and everyone pretty much chain-smoked, but I digress…. Sr. wasn’t having it, and Jr. was well-aware:
“I used to smoke cigarettes. I hid it from everybody, I thought. I thought I was hiding it from everybody, and I smoked a lot, especially when I played video games, driving a car, just one after the over. And s 2001, I’m 24, 26, 27, something like that, mid-20’s.
So dad had seen my ash tray in the house, never smoked around him, I knew that would get me an a** whooping. He hated it, and I knew he hated it from how he reacted around other people that did it. But he walked in the house and I couldn’t get it hid, and he had seen it before, and he kind of knew I was smoking, but he didn’t know how much.
But anyways, I had never done it in front of him, he had never seen me with a cigarette, never seen me with a pack of cigarettes, right? And so, I always wore an open face helmet… so we got the clip in for the drink, the electric drink, I’d always just tasted the tube, no electricity pumps.”
Well, Jr. was messing around before a race, and he had stuck a cigarette in that tube to be funny, and it wasn’t lit, and right about that time, his dad stopped by his bus with a golf cart to take him to pit road and caught him red-handed:
“And I had that thing and we’re getting ready, I’ve got a friend with me in the bus… my PR guy. He’s like, ‘Hey, your dad wants you to go to pit road.’ I’m like ‘Man, I’m not getting in the car until another five hours.’ He’s like, ‘He wants you to come to pit road for a picture on the grid.’ I’m like, ‘Alright, cool, I’ll go.’
We’re getting ready to go and he’s like, ‘They’re gonna come by and pick us up on the golf cart.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ And I’m nervous, I’m pushing out all this nervous energy. So I’m standing in my bus, and I put that helmet on, and I stuck a cigarette in that little thing where the drink goes, and I’m standing right at the door of the steps, and I’m doing this dance, I’m like ‘Hey, look at me, look at this cigarette, I smoke.’
Right in that moment, dad opens the door, he looks straight up in there at me, and I turn, and I’ve got that helmet on with the cigarette sticking out of it. And we’re getting ready to start this 24 hours at Daytona, this Corvette thing it’s a big day.”
As you can imagine, his dad was NOT happy, and he slammed the door behind him. Once they all got on the golf cart, Jr.’s friend started laughing, which obviously only annoyed Sr. more:
“He slammed the f****** door. He slams the door shut. My freakin’ eyes were as big as sand dollars, and I pull the helmet off and I set it down, and my buddies like, ‘We better go.’
And we go out and the golf carts sitting there, dad’s sitting on the front of it, he’s steaming, smoke coming out of his ears, he won’t even look at me. We sit on the back, and we’re riding in the infield at Daytona heading towards the grid.
We go about 100 yards, and my buddy just starts snickering, and dad turns around and goes, ‘Don’t f******* encourage him.’ He was so mad.”
I mean, I get him being upset with Jr. for having such an unhealthy habit, but to have been a fly on the wall for this whole thing… it’s pretty dang funny.
@full_throddle Love this Dale Earnhardt story! #nascar #racing #dalejr #daleearnhardt #fyp ♬ original sound – Full Throttle
