Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Full NASCAR Hall of Fame Speech

[Music] on behalf of our daughters isla and nicole i am proud to say on this 21st day of january 2022 it is now my honor to present the nascar hall of fame inductee ring and officially induct my husband dale earnhardt jr into the nascar hall of fame [Music] [Applause] [Applause] my eyes are already watering gosh and i'll before i go anywhere i want to say i think i got my first guess for this year's dell junior download i don't know what you're doing in february red but i need you to come on and tell some stories buddy that was awesome i love it i want to congratulate you and obviously the late mike stefanik for their induction your induction in the hall of fame here i want to extend that to your family and your friends all the race teams the members that have worked on your race cars and obviously uh most importantly the fans that have supported your careers it's a privilege for me to be in this class with both of you mike he was one of the greatest modified racers of all time and read one of the grittiest toughest smartest guys ever hold the wheel leonard wood would say you held a pretty will that's what leonard would come up to me before every race hold it pretty well well i loved it to their wives julie and judy as well as their families we now share a very special bond going into the hall of fame of 2021 together really means a lot i want to thank the nascar hall of fame you opened your doors back in 2010 i was lucky enough to be here for that first ceremony and wearing the blue jacket myself was way uh probably beyond my wildest imagination at that point i was just ecstatic uh to be asked to curate the glory road out there uh when you go through the hall of fame you we celebrate the champions of the sport and i love celebrating nascar history and the people in it and that'll always uh be important to me i was a mechanic at a dealership that was my destiny or so i thought you guys remember at all the chevrolet dealerships if you drove a gm product you'd go to the 29 minutes or less quick lube y'all remember that well i could do it in eight yeah my brother i changed the oil in thousands of cars my brother wrote every ticket he was a service writer at that dealership and i think i only forgot to put the oil filter on one that was funny when i drove it out back into the lot and all the oil pulling pouring out of it and i uh that's not why i got fired from that job we'll talk about that another day so i really want to thank nascar for giving me a place to make a living and by nascar i mean the entire industry i'm grateful for every employee race track official every ticket seller every weekend volunteer every crew member competitor anyone who's ever invested their time in this sport to make it great however if i were to single just one person out of that group somebody who embodies nascar and has also been an incredible friend of me and mentor it's mike helton you know we talked about mike up here on the stage earlier he's just an incredible man he's like my dad when he walks into the room the room changes and i'm a better person for having him in my life so thank you mike for everything you've always done for me you know dale jarrett is a guy i've always looked up to and he advised me a while back to start working on my speech early because there's countless people in somebody's you know in career that impact that person's career and i knew he was right it was really going to be impossible to name all the names but there are some specific moments in my life and i think if i highlight a couple of those moments it also highlights some of the people that were part of those it was uh back in 1993 i started driving late model stock cars my dad put me with a guy named gary hargett gary hargett had worked with my dad in the 70s worked with harry gant and and a long list of other people but it was uh he could have chose anybody you know we we we got all kinds of race teams and dad knows everybody in the sport he could have really put me with anybody but he sent me down to marshfield north carolina and to drive gary's cars gary had a dirt floor shop and we had a stock clip on the front of that race car back in 96 and i think it was the only one in in the class but uh the few years that i worked with him i definitely understood how to work on race cars i tore them up so we had a lot of chance to learn how to fix them but there was something else that happened while i was with gary gary taught me how to be a better person i was only 19 years old i was socially awkward and i was a punk um one time we were putting a decal on the car big decal on the hood of this late model stock car and there's a couple guys in the shop helping out the volunteers that read mentioned and one's got the corn one's got one corner of the decal another guy's got the other corner and one's popping holes with a with a razor blade and i got the squeegee and i'm barking demands and and and cursing and and and asking for this and and why'd you do it that way and pull it back up and oh man and when i got done this decal looked terrible it had a bunch of wrinkles in it a bunch of bubbles and i looked up to tell them my negative impression on our work and they were not there i looked around in this shop and nobody was in there i walked outside and gary and the guys were sitting uh sitting on the wall uh eating some crackers and drinking a sun drop and i said what the heck and gary said will you run us all out of there and uh he he took me to took me to the side and he said man you got to learn how to treat people and that stuck with me he taught me how to treat people he called me out when i was making mistakes gary never shouted gary never got angry but he was uh he was the guy that held me accountable he wouldn't be the last person to hold me accountable either in 1997 my dad asked tony your senior who should drive dale and hart incorporated's full-time xfinity ride and the name that come out of that man's mouth was mine now you got to remember i'd run nine xfinity races and hadn't done much with that i only won four late model stock races in the 159 starts i had yet when dad asked tony senior who he wanted in pretty much tony senior's race car at that time tony run to run the show he said my name now when he did that i did i not only won the lottery but uh i got the second person in my life that held me accountable of course uh tony you know he's nothing like gary gary was calm measured and never raised his voice tony senior his ass chewing zucked off the grandstands and nobody was spared boy um but i needed tony senior more than i realized because what came with all that at the time was championships big expectations and instant life changing notoriety imagine trying to navigate that chaotic supercharged world with just without a ground like tony and the biggest compliment that i could ever give tony senior is that i never wanted to let you down and i still feel that same way today i think about you all the time and every day i live my life to to please people like you buddy [Applause] in 2013 my sister kelly quit her position at the company she worked for and she came to work for me she took a 50 pay cut i told her i couldn't afford her but uh you know that was the least of her sacrifices because from that day on she prioritized my life over everything else including her own she'd tell you that it was an easy decision to come work for me because i i certainly needed a ton of help and she wouldn't be wrong but um you have to remember the circumstances around that time me and her both had a massive void in our lives and i needed her leadership the problem was that she didn't have someone to lean on at that time she didn't have someone to salvage the good parts and rebuild and it took a toll on kelly but as time went on my career took off my personal life my finances my businesses everything that she touched succeeded she also paved the way for junior motorsports my broadcasting career and other business ventures and though i don't think it was kelly's intention i think she's become one of the most influential and respected people in our sport in 2007 we made the decision to leave dei and go to henry motorsports the following year and that brought rick hendrick into my life i wanted to drive the best race cars in the garage but privately rick i just really was hoping to gain a lifelong friendship with you right out of the gate rick was all in caring supportive and investing a lot of time in me but you guys got to remember he's also one of the best car salesmen in the in the country i had my guard up a little bit but over time i realized he's got the heart of texas the size of texas and somebody who has helped me and countless others overcome challenges in their lives rick also surrounded me with wonderful people to work with quite a few of those are here tonight and one of those is steve latarp steve revived steve revived my career it restored my confidence and for that steve i'm always going to be grateful i can also say that he was absolutely a big influence in me deciding to become a broadcaster the biggest appeal of going into the booth was always and still is to get to work beside one of my best friends on that note go ahead on that note i want to say whether it's been on the track or in the broadcast booth i've always been blessed with having wonderful teammates at dei at henry rotorsports and now at nbc i've been really fortunate to work with some amazing and very gifted people for the fifth and final moment that i want to recognize coincidentally back in 2008 when i was in my first year at hidden motorsports all these great things were happening around me i met my wife amy i don't even know where to begin to explain to you you know what amy means to me how do you explain to people uh something that makes every day your life better how do you put that into words you know back then i was uh really self-centered everything was about me i was incapable of experiencing life to its fullest i was kind of like an adult living like a child and i didn't know how to love unconditionally and i really wanted to but just hadn't found that person but amy changed all of that when she came into my life the accountability instilled in me by the gary hargitz and the rick hendricks the kelly earnhardt the steve latartz that helped me thrive in racing and in business but i hadn't applied any of that to my personal life and amy taught me how to be accountable as a man eventually as a husband and now as a father of two beautiful girls island nicole i got through that one without crying so those are the five moments that i wanted to to mention tonight that contributed to this moment right now but to be sure uh there's one key support system that's always been consistent throughout my career and that's the fans that's right junior nations always had my back oh yeah when i stumbled yeah when i stumbled you guys are right there ready to lift me back up man there were times there were times when i absolutely needed you and you never let me down you're always there we won together and we lost together and because so you should know that i don't go into this hall of fame alone i go with you and i go because of you i love you too nothing that racing will ever nothing that racing has given me will ever top this night the people enshrined in this building they're my role models and they're my heroes and one of them happens to be my father so to join dad and the hall of fame is probably as good as it's ever going to get yeah i want to thank everybody for being here tonight it means a lot to me it means a lot to red and his family and his friends that are here tonight and it means a lot to the stefanik family thank you guys have a great night and i can't wait to see everybody in daytona [Applause] you

Channel: NASCAR

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Keywords: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Full NASCAR Hall of Fame Speech, red farmer, nascar hall of fame, nascar, bob jekins, nascar cup series, nascar next gen, hall of fame, quier hall award, Bob Jenkins honored with Squier-Hall Award | NASCAR Hall of Fame, alabama gang, full speach, dale jr, dale earnhardt jr, nascar hall of fame dale jr

Id: yoVy2U5ARtI

Length: 14min 21sec (861 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 21 2022