FanHouse Talks to Dale Earnhardt Jr. About Amp, the Chase and Ride-Alongs

Recently, Wrangler Jeans was kind enough to invite FanHouse down to Charlotte to interview Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and -- I kid you not -- ride a couple laps in the 88 car. (Watch the full video of Will Brinson's ride with Dale Jr.) What follows is the conversation between Junior and myself about Hendrick Motorsports, Jimmie Johnson's dominance and how Amp is secretly a better post race drink than Budweiser.

Will Brinson: Thanks for having us down here to hang out, ride around in cars, and get our NASCAR feet wet.

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.: Yeah, man, good to have you.

WB: I want to talk about the Sprint Cup for just a second. Jimmie [Johnson] is locked up, right? He's got his third straight title? What are your thoughts on that?

DE: Yeah, I think Jimmie's on record to set a new record, even to write history. I said to him the other day, "Man you're writing history". And I'm happy for him, he's a great guy ... I say to him all the time: "If people only knew who you are ...". But I think people do know Jimmie is and know he's a good guy. But man, he really deserves it; he works the hardest of any driver I know to stay in shape, to understand what's going on out there and to be ready do his job every Sunday. They're hard to beat man, and they earned it.

WB: Well, considering just how good Jimmie's been over the past three years, do you think there are any changes that need to be made in terms of how the Chase is setup?

DE: I don't think that the Chase needs any changes. I think you gotta give Jimmie credit for being that good under these circumstances this year. Sure, people are going to say he made a mockery of the Chase and this and that and the other, but he was just that good.

Give the guy credit; I don't think any changes really need to be made. NASCAR made a playoff system, it's very exciting and we had a guy run away with it -- we had a dominant team. But you have that in all sports, even with great playoff structures, you still get the dominant teams every once in a while. And we really are witnessing one of the greatest performances of this decade, if not the sport itself. So, I just think a lot of credit goes to Jimmie and the Chase is really in good shape the way it's setup right now.



WB: All right, cool, well, switching back to Hendrick -- you guys had an overall team that did really well in the regular season -- you think the change gives you a shot at a Championship in the future?

DE: Yeah, my switch gives me a great opportunity, not only in working with Rick as an owner, but he also takes really good care of his employees. He does such a great job as an owner, and makes you really proud to be a part of the team. He makes you feel like family and you really enjoy working for a guy like that and it makes you want to go out and work really hard. Aside from that, performance-wise and professionally, it gives me an opportunity to be in the Chase this year. If I have a couple other things that go differently, we're out there battling for a top-five finish in the points. We still have that opportunity, but we had a pretty good season up until the Chase started and we're proud of what we were able to do. We started this year saying "Alright, I'm a good race driver ... I got a good team ... I'm going into a program that's proven ... What's gonna happen?" We really didn't know. So we saw we can make it happen, we saw we can race well, so we're looking forward to next year.

WB: Right on ... I actually thought the toughest part of that transition, you know, not that Amp isn't a great product, but you had to go from Budweiser to Amp, which makes the post-race celebration a little tougher.

DE: A little different. But it's a mixer, man, you can make it whatever you want. It actually goes pretty well with vodka. [Laughter fills the room.] So the post-race stuff is still pretty fun. But it was different. I had a great relationship with Budweiser and I'd been with them for so long -- and it's different -- you know, it's weird to be used to doing things one way and totally change up. But it's been a great experience for me.



WB: Sure, well that's the nice thing about Wrangler -- you've been with them five years now, and they're your longest running sponsor. You want to give us a little background on how, you know, working with the Pettys and Victory Junction you guys put this event on today.

DE: Yeah, what we're doing today is basically the result of an auction we did online where the proceeds went to Victory Junction Gang, which is a camp for terminally ill kids that Kyle Petty runs. They're building a new camp in Kansas, and they've got one here in North Carolina -- and both camps are doing really well. Wrangler puts on the auction and they're auctioning off a ride in a racecar with me -- I'm gonna take a guy around the track for a few laps. He paid over $15,000 to do this, so we'll scare the heck out of him if we can ... give him a good little experience about what it's like to be inside the car. And we'll have a lot of fun with that, and he'll hopefully enjoy it.

We've done this auction several years in a row, it's worked very well so far, and we put a couple other items up there and it raises somewhere around $20,000 each year. And the people that are really solely responsible for this auction are Wrangler Jeans. And like you said, they've been with me for five years, they've been with my family working with my dad in the past ... literally they've been with me for almost 25, 30 years. It's been a great experience, they're great people, and I have a lot of fun doing these type of things.

I do a lot of these appearances all year long and one of the best ones is being able to take someone around a racetrack and see what you're doing. So I'm gonna take about 15 people for rides today and you're one of them (Ed. Note: *gulp*)... and also I have the opportunity to take a couple friends around the track and sneak them in for a couple laps.

WB: Nice, yeah, so Whiskey River, what's up with that ... downtown Charlotte?

DE: Yeah, I got into the bar business, and I've been looking to get into the bar business for about 10 years. But you've got to meet the right people and doing this with the right person -- you can certainly get in some shady deals. And I was able to get up with the right group and we partenered up with a good vision of what we wanted to create ... we created like a sports-rock, well, a country-rock bar. And there's no sign of racing, and you wouldn't ever know -- there's nothing sports affiliated in the thing, unless you count the mechanical bull -- we have a lot of fun with that thing, you know, the girls love it.



The bar's been open for about eight months, and we had Gary Allen open it up for us and he came back again and played it for a charity auction, and Dierks Bentley (above) used it for a CD release party, so that was a heck of a compliment, I was really excited about that. It's a lot of fun, I go about once or twice a month, get in there and see what's going on, see if we need to change anything up.

WB: Alright, well, I'm getting in the car with you in a few minutes, so I'm curious to find out what's the worst experience you've ever had in a ridealong before ...

DE: I haven't really had any bad ones before ... I guess the worst part is when you get someone who's really kind of freaking out and getting too nervous ... you don't want to scare anyone, obviously, don't want to really give anyone a bad experience (Nervous laughter ensues) ... my crew chief's wife, Amy, she's a little tiny thing and she was petrified and so that was tough and so I don't know if I was helping her out ... (More nervous laughter from both sides) ... I don't know if she'd every do it again. But I've never had anyone lose any bowels or lose any fluids out any, uh, end of their bodies.

(Entire room fills with laughter)

WB: Alright, Dale, well, thanks again for taking the time to talk to us and, uh, I'll try not to lose my bowels out there.

DE: Aw, man, don't worry, you'll be fine.