The Older Dale Earnhardt Jr. Gets, The Slower He Wants Teen Drivers To Be

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – JULY 22: Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the #88 Nationwide Chevrolet, speaks with the media during a press conference at Indianapolis Motorspeedway on July 22, 2017 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Tim Bradbury/Getty Images)

Getty Images

There was a time when Dale Earnhardt Jr. looked like the sort of person who considered sleep a rumor and consequences someone else’s problem. He was fast, famous and forever young until, of course, time did what it always does. These days, Junior is still fast mentally and still famous, but he’s also reached the age where khaki cargo shorts seem practical and dad jokes are, in fact, funny.

Time has also changed his perspective on who he partners with. It seems like only yesterday that Earnhardt Jr. was the face of Budweiser; today, priorities have shifted. With two young daughters, ages 5 and 7, life now revolves less around the fast lane and more around keeping things slow, and safe.

January is Teen Driving Awareness Month, and Nationwide Insurance and Earnhardt Jr. have teamed up on a program aimed at delivering a blunt message to teen drivers: put the phone down when you’re driving. The concern isn’t hypothetical. According to a recent study conducted by researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, seven in 10 high school students reported glancing at, picking up, or using their phones for about 20% of their time behind the wheel. Reading or responding to a text message or using a social media app while driving, researchers said, increases the likelihood of a crash by 5.5 times.

For Earnhardt Jr., partnering with Nationwide to promote a program that incentivizes teens to keep their phones out of reach was an easy call.

“I feel like it’s so timely for me to be doing something like this,” he said. “You know the Nationwide Focus Driving Rewards program is pretty fun and unique…if you go out there and do a good job, you’re rewarded with real incentives like gift cards and things like that that people can truly understand and appreciate and utilize.”

The Focused Driving Rewards program isn’t limited to Nationwide policyholders; it’s open to anyone with teens just beginning their driving journey. Even though his own daughters are still a few years away from the driver’s seat, Earnhardt Jr. knows how quickly that moment arrives.

“I’ve had some pretty close calls back in the day, and I’m fearful of that for my own children,” he said. “I’m glad I’m being persuaded by Nationwide to get an early start on trying to educate them and helping other people as well.”

As for his own driving education that came from his father, who also happened to be a NASCAR legend. Dale Earnhardt Sr. was known as the Intimidator on the track, but when it came to his own children, specifically Dale Jr. and his sister Kelly, he was just dad, trying to keep his kids safe.

It was an experience Dale Jr. said he will cherish forever.

“Dad was really hands on with how to drive on the highway,” Dale Jr. said. “I remember him being really hands on with Kelly and myself.”

Earnhardt Sr. understood the freedom that came with a driver’s license, and the risks as well.

“He was so eager and concerned as a parent,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “He spent a ton of time with us talking about how easily things can go the wrong way. He shared mistakes he made on the highway and some near misses — things he was fortunate to get out of.”

That hands-on approach though stopped once Dale Jr. climbed into a race car.

“He wasn’t riding in the passenger seat saying, ‘Do this, do that,’” he said with a smile. “He was the opposite. He was like, ‘Go out there and figure it out.’”

Some of the most valuable lessons, however, happened far from the racetrack.

“We had 300 acres of land with roads cut into it, and he got Kelly and me a Volkswagen with a manual shift,” Earnhardt Jr. recalled. “He just let us run wild on that property. That’s how we both learned to drive a manual transmission, without fear of scuffing it up or doing anything bad.”

But when it came to the highway, there was no room for experimentation.

“He took the highway really serious,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “And you know that imprints on you as an adult going forward. It was you know something if you truly admire your father as I did, and a lot of sons do, you listen to those lessons and pass them on…they’re important to you. You want to be the same teacher if given the opportunity to your own kids.”

That opportunity is coming sooner than he’d like.

“My parenting techniques have been really thorough,” he said. “I wouldn’t call it overkill, but it’s very thorough and repetitive. I’m that way with everything — whether we’re studying for a spelling test or just trying to teach a small lesson.”

It’s the same methodical, detail-driven approach he once applied to racing, and one that contrasts with his wife Amy’s more relaxed style. It’s also one he recognizes immediately, because it mirrors his father’s.

“When we get out on the road, my dad, his way of doing it was, if he was driving the car, he would say, hey, it’s really easy to run off the road, watch,” Dale Jr. said. “He’d drop a tire off the road and say, hey, and we’re bouncing along, you know, a couple inches off the highway. He’s like, now you smoothly take the wheel and bring the car back. You don’t yank it. If you yank it, this is what happens.”

So if Focused Driving Rewards had existed when he was 16, would Earnhardt Jr. have signed up for safety, or the gift cards?

“Well, the gift cards would certainly be an encouraging factor,” he said with a chuckle. “I wish they would have had programs like this around when I was a kid. It’s very much, like rewards in a video game… I’m a gamer and always have been and the ones that really kind of lure me in and keep me playing are the ones that do have those kinds of carrots out in front of you.”

What resonates most with Earnhardt Jr., though, isn’t the incentive. It’s the reinforcement.

“It’s always good to have somebody in your corner,” he said. “Helping you understand how to avoid some of the dangers that are out there on the highway.”

Especially when the biggest danger behind the wheel isn’t traffic, weather, or speed, but the thing you’re holding in your hand.

“I think as a society, as we keep picking up these bad habits and have these things conveniently at our fingertips, the dangers are just getting more and more profound,” he said.

These days, the former rebel isn’t speaking as a driver who thinks he’s invincible. He’s speaking as a father who knows how quickly things can go wrong, and hopes his daughters, and other teens, never have to learn that lesson the hard way.