Dale Earnhardt Jr. Recalls The First Time He Flipped His Car At Daytona: “3,000 Pounds But It Flies Like Paper, Weightless”

It’s difficult to imagine what it would even be like to drive around a NASCAR track like the Daytona International Speedway. Imagine just by yourself for a practice lap, ripping it wide open at 200 mph, and then try to imagine what it would be like when you’re racing 30 other guys….

And with the way Daytona has raced over these past few years, with wreck after wreck, especially at the finish, these drivers have to be nervous strapping in. Even if you do everything right, you can get caught up in wreck.

Needless to say, it takes some guts to get behind the wheel of these speed machines.

And when you watch a NASCAR race and you see an awful wreck with one or two cars flipping, you can’t help but think about what’s going through the driver’s minds as it goes on.

Are they thinking “this is the end?” Are they cool, calm, and collected?

Dale Earnhardt Jr. made an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast a few years back, and talked about his first experiences as a full-time NASCAR driver… and that includes his first time flipping a car.

Believe it or not, he wasn’t scared at all, and he was actually quite calm, despite Daytona being the track where his legendary father, Dale Earnhardt, tragically passed away in 2001.

Dale recalled the first time he flipped saying:

“When I flipped for the first time… I thought to myself, I wasn’t scared or I never was scared of flipping… my thought was I just did something a lot of people are never going to experience.

I did something that only a few people know what that’s like. And I feel safe, I’ve always felt incredibly safe inside the car, you know, especially in the last 20 years the safety stuff has really been focused on and improved… better and better and better.

I look at the interior of cars today versus 20 years ago, and can’t believe some of the stuff we used to climb into.”

Rogan had to pause Jr., in shock that he was calm throughout his first time flipping, and he responded:

“Well I’ve seen cars flip, right? I’ve seen it for years… so I know it’s possible.

In 1998 I was racing in Daytona, and got turned around, and the car, so I’m flipping for the first time in my life. This car is like over 3,000 pounds, but it flies up in the air like it’s paper, it’s crazy… it’s so weightless.

What it felt like to me… so the car rolled on its side and came down kinda on its side. It felt like somebody rolled a prop wall of grass up against the car… I felt like I was flipping right side up because the force pushes you down in the seat. You feel gravity all the time.

You feel the weight of yourself in the seat and it never changes, you never come up out of the seat… it’s just the weirdest feeling. You feel completely safe.”

Absolutely wild…