Dale Earnhardt stories never get old.
I don’t know about you, but I could listen to Dale Earnhardt Jr. provide anecdotes about his father all day long. The life and legacy of “The Intimidator” will always intrigue the masses, and most NASCAR fans are very familiar with all of the things Earnhardt Sr. accomplished on the race track.
But it’s the stories about the regular life of the seven-time Cup Series champion that are always the most fun to hear about.
On a recent episode of Bless Your Hardt – a show that Dale Jr. and his wife, Amy, do for Dirty Mo Media – the parents were talking about their strategy when it comes to limiting their children’s screen time. They said that they’ve found a good balance with their two daughters, and though they encourage them to play and spend time outside, the Earnhardts recognize that screens will likely be a big part of their future.
When talking about how some parents like to limit screen time, Dale Jr. was reminded of the first time that he was able to bring technology into his family home when he was 15-years-old or so:
“I’ll never forget this. When I wanted to buy a computer, I think I was 15, I didn’t have credit yet. Kelly put it on her credit. It was a $500 computer from Best Buy. She financed it for $100 a month, and I was going to pay her the $100 or whatever. No one had computers in their houses in 1994.
I was so excited. Dad heard us talking about it, and then I bought it, and we got it and I’m over there messing with it. I got racing: Bill Elliott’s NASCAR Challenge. I was playing Bill Elliott’s NASCAR Challenge on a floppy disk in drafting class. I was like, ‘I need this at home.’ I didn’t want to stay after school and play for an hour until they run me off.”
With hindsight, he was worried about the wrong person running him off.
Because once Dale Jr. got his computer set up at home, there was one person in the household that wasn’t a fan of the technology… his father:
“Dad sees that I’m sitting over there doing this, and he says, ‘You’re wasting your time with them computers.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ How could you not be like, ‘My son’s on this box that I have no understanding of.’ But he was like, ‘That’s a waste of time.’ If he was sitting right here, I’d be like, ‘What did you know? You didn’t know.'”
His wife told him that he wouldn’t tell Dale Sr. that before Dale Jr. went on to talk about how he likes to see his kids play with technology.
I’ve got to say… Dale Earnhardt being someone that saw computers as a “waste of time” doesn’t surprise me. That seems very much on brand for him, and I’m sure a lot of dad were saying similar things to their sons and daughters at the time (ironically, now a lot of young kids are having to say that very thing to their own parents).
You can hear Dale Jr. tell the full story in the latest episode of Bless Your Hardt:
