Dale Earnhardt Jr. Recalls “Panicking” When His Dad Bought Him Paint Supplies Because He Thought He Wanted To Be An Artist

Maybe they just wanted him to draw them some pictures?

Last year, Prime Video announced that their forthcoming four-part series called Earnhardt, which focuses on the life and legacy of the late, great Dale Earnhardt Sr., will be out this Memorial Day weekend on their streaming service. Featuring interviews from Dale’s friends, family, and obviously his son, Dale Jr., the documentary will also feature never-before-seen footage of Dale during his racing career from both his personal and professional life.

They’ve shared a few teasers and trailers and Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his sister, Kelley, have been doing tons of press to promote their new project, and of course have been talking extensively about their legendary father. It seems as though they talk a lot about what life was like with their dad when they were young based on all the questions they’ve been getting, and in case you didn’t know, when Dale Jr. and Kelley were 8 and 10, their mom’s house caught on fire and they went to live with their dad, a man who they didn’t know very well at the time.

He had started making money racing, and didn’t spend much time with them at all… Dale Sr. was focused on making his career happen, and as Dale mentions in the trailer for the documentary and has mentioned many times before on different platforms, that was his father’s top priority.

While Jr. obviously followed in his dad’s footsteps, becoming a driver at the highest level of NASCAR and ultimately finding himself in the Hall of Fame, his dad had no clue for a very long time that Dale Jr. was even interested in racing. Dale Jr. was asked during another recent interview about a story he tells in the new show when his dad and stepmom, Teresa, bought him an expensive art set because they thought he wanted to go to art school and be an artist.

Dale has always enjoyed drawing as a hobby, he sketches race cars and paint schemes and things like that, but never thought of it as anything more than something fun to do to pass the time. So when they walked into his room with all these art supplies, a young Dale Jr. “panicked”:

“You picked right up on it, that was what it was like. When they came in the room with that box, it was a big, long rectangular box filled with all of these really great tools. High-end, expensive drawing utensils and pens and things like that. It was really well thought out, but I panicked. I panicked, like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m not going to be a race car driver.’

It was a very, very shocking few minutes where I just couldn’t believe this is what they thought I would want to do. They thought that I might see this and go, ‘Okay, maybe this will be a good thing. Maybe I should try this.’ My reaction was like, ‘Are you crazy? I’m so taken aback that you guys think that.'”

He felt completely misunderstood, and at that age, probably didn’t understand that they just wanted to support his interests, and it didn’t mean they were making some decision that he could never race.

Nevertheless, Dale Jr. didn’t know how to even ask his dad about the possibility of him being a race car driver, and he had no idea where to even start on his own:

“I was panicking, I was panicking because I thought, I knew racing wasn’t in my grasp yet, and I was reaching out for it and I didn’t know how to get started. I had no clue, I didn’t know what to do first, I didn’t know what the first move was.

And I would rarely get opportunities to have a moment with dad where I could say, ‘Hey, dad, how do I start? What do I do?’ So we didn’t have any conversation about it, I guess he truly didn’t know how I felt about racing, or driving, or how badly I wanted to do it. So that was a moment, for sure.”

It’s pretty wild to think about the son of the most legendary NASCAR driver of all time not knowing where or how to start to follow in his footsteps, but I think it speaks to the nature of their relationship and how complex it really was, even from the time Dale Jr. was very young.

Like I said, that seems to be a big topic of conversation, at least in an episode or two, and I find it all really interesting so I’m really excited to get to watch it all.

You can see Dale Jr. talk more about it here:

This documentary promises to be a very in-depth look at both Dale the NASCAR driver and the man, with new stories and footage from his legendary, yet imperfect, life.

It’s being produced by Imagine Documentaries, NASCAR Studios, and Everyone Else, in association with Dirty Mo Media, which is Dale Jr’s media company. It will come out the same weekend as the Coca-Cola 600 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Memorial Day Weekend, and the race will be aired for the first time on Prime Video with Dale Earnhardt Jr. making his debut on that service during this race in the booth.

Here’s a look at the most recent trailer: