DALE EARNHARDT JR QUOTES

"I feel pressure all the time. It seems like there's a lot of people to please. You don't realize the pressure until you have failed a little bit. I missed a shift and lost about six spots at Watkins Glenn with two laps or so to go. That's when you realize how many people are actually watching you. That's when you realize the number of eyes that are on you."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr

"The name puts a lot of weight on your shoulders. I thought about what if I had done it different or done something else for a living, would there still be pressure in the name? Yeah, the pressure would still be there. It's going to be tough. It's not going to get any easier. The more of a difference I make, the more good runs we have and keep putting ourselves in the points battle and the more of ourselves we put out there to be sacrificed - there is a chance for us to get cut. It's hard to explain. A lot of people don't understand who I am or what I am. Hopefully it won't take too long for people to unnerstand I can be anybody's best friend. I am not conceited or anything like that."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr

"I am a very shy person, and I don't have a lot of self-esteem. I probably walk around with my head down a whole lot a whole lot more than I should. A lot of people think I'm being short with them or don't feel like talking to a lot of people, or a lot of poeple might make the remark, 'Hey, he just walked right by me with his head down, and that's all he ever does.' I have been raised not to speak unless you are spoken to. That's the way I have always been. I am trying to change that. I am trying to be more outspoken and be more upfront with people. I want them to see more of me than they are used to, but it's tough."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr

(ABOUT DAD WHEN JR WAS YOUNG) "We really didn't know him that well. I hadn't seen him except for maybe once every month or so. For about three years, I really didn't know who he was because we were really too young to understand what was going on. When we moved in with him, he was gone racing all the time, so we had nannies taking raising me and Kelley. We had a confusing little situation for several years. I guess people think I grew up in a mansion with someone waiting on me hand and foot all the time. That's not true at all."

-Dale Earnhart Jr

(ON HIM AND HIS DAD'S TIME TOGETHER) "I look forward to talking with him every day, but usually it's maybe four days a week or so. That was before I become more of an asset to him, you know? Now he's available to listen to me more than before. . . We went horseback riding about two weeks ago. He's pretty good at helping me out. Hw's always right. Always right! He's blessed with mounds and mounds of common sense. I know he's happy with what we're enjoying together. I'm sure he thinks about Granddaddy a lot and how all that worked out. A long time ago, he really took it to heart to start eating right and watch his weight and calories. Dad wanted to take care of himself so he could be around a lot longer.

-Dale Earnhardt Jr

(ON DAD & BEING THE INTIMIDATOR) "He carries that with him everywhere he goes. Its' hard to pry underneath that and get down to the daddy, you know? He's the block of my foundation. He embodies everything that I believe in and everything I want to achieve. He's like the nucleus of my whole being."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr

(ON DAD) "Aside from not getting any equipment to race, we never did get any attention unless we showed some initiative. He wouldn't put in his time or effort to even think about questions or comments unless we had the initiative or goals and were trying to achieve them. He supported us with equipment and a means to race, but he didn't go out of his way for top-notch equipment or spending thousands of dollars on the best motors or whatever. Most of the time, we built most of the motors we ran ourselves. That was always a big disadvantage for us, for me, my brother and sister. When we ran in the top five it was almost a like a win for us."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr

(ON DAD) "He's a lot of fun. He's not as rough on me when I make a mistake as he was in the beginning. When I tore up something, he was pretty tough there for a while. I think he's getting more comfortable and not worrying as much about whether I'm capable of getting the job done. He knows now when we have a setback, I can be smart enough to keep myself calm and make it back up in the points or whatever. I think that was what he was worried about at first, but now he knows we're going at first, but now he knows we're going to be able to get the job done."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr

(About the race being fixed at Daytona)

"I couldn't believe. I was in Seattle and I was doing some interviews with the baseball media and this guy asked me like, 'What do you think about people saying the race was fixed?" I literally cocked back just to knock the hell out of this guy. I didn't know what he was saying. It didn't register."

"It really bothered me pretty bad, it upset me. That was the biggest race of my career, my biggest win. Aside from the wins I had when my father was there, that's going to be the day that I will always remember. For somebody to question its credibility, to question me credibility, I feel like that's a slap in my face, a slap in my father's face and a slap in (crew chief) Tony Eury's face. Those guys busted their butts to build a great race car. They probably worked harder on that race car than on any other car they've ever worked on. I never drove harder in my life. I went out there and got the lead. I was blocking all night long and making the moves to stay up front. We won the race so convincingly that it raised questions. It's a shame and it takes a lot away from."

"It was a great moment in NASCAR history and it got kicked in the (groin)."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr

(On restrictor-plate racing with his dad)

"If you watched the past two or three restrictor-plate races that I raced with him, we were competitive and we ran up front. I learned a lot from him and I know how to drive in those races. I learned how to work the air on the cars and how to get by people by yourself without help and things like that. I kind of learned how to do that. In those races I always kind of got toward the front and then it was always him who was the one pulling the tricks on me that made me fall back.

Without him in that race this past weekend, I felt invincible. I had everything that he had, knowledge and confidence, what he had and what he took to those races he had. I just felt like I couldn't be touched."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr.

(Jr and his fans)

"When we won The Winston and they had Victory Lane on the front straightaway, it was just an awesome feeling to be that close to the race fans. It really allowed me to enjoy the victory; it really showed what the victory was, how big it was and how important it was. When you're in Victory Circle you're disconnected from all of that. It's very uniform in victory circle, things happen one after another - picutres, hats - you really don't know what you've won. To get out there in front of the fans, they will tell you just exactly how important that race was. That's what I did. I wanted to get out there and see what they thought about it. I jumped up on the car and I was very determined to win that race. I wanted them to know that I was really happy."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr.

(On Budweiser) "They like who I am, and they aren't trying to change that. They haven't come to me and said, 'Look, your gonna have to quit this or quit that, or do this or do that, and we need you to act this way, and dress this way...' They let me be who I want to be. They let me be comfortable."

- Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"One of my favorite things to do is go to Wal-Mart at 3 AM in the morning and just walk around, lookin' for CD's and stuff. And it's not necessarily because I don't want to be bothered; it's just that there is no body in there then, and you feel like you own the whole store. If feels like you are on a big shoppin spree like they opened it up just for you. That's pretty cool."

-Dale Earnhardt Jr.

(On Dad) "He was a different person that I am. He didn't have a father that was financially established to were, even if Dad didn't make it as a race car driver and determination that I had. I mean, raw drive and determination, like, 'I have to make this happen, because if I don't, I'm gonna be a broke cottonhead from Kannapolis.' He had a lot more fire, a lot more things drivin' him that I did. And that's probably why he was a lot more aggressive early on that I am. I don't have to be aggressive. I've let it come at a more natural pace. I know there's good things ahead, but there's no point forcin' em to happen. I can wait, because I'm in good shape. I don't have to race for my next meal."

Dale Jr.

( On Dad's racing style) "He races hard. He takes advantage of opportunities and takes risks on the race track, just like he did years ago. He'll never cheat nobody on the track, as far as, like, 'Look, I'm gonna run you up to the wall and you're gonna have to back off. I'm takin' the race track.' I see drivers go down into the corner under him, then slip up in front of him and cut him off, and he'll have to get out of the gas to keep from wreckin' em both. Well, I've never seen him do that. He'll give 'em enough room, and he knows exactly what's enough. I've never seen him cheat nobody, but I've also never seen him fold, or allow anything more that what he thought was justifiable."

Dale Jr.

(On the busy garage area) "I'm actually easily distracted. A lot of times I'm just in aviodance mode, you know? Tryin' to get from my trailer to my car, that gets to be a more difficult job every week, it seems like. I feel like, if people care, if people give a shit about me, they'll understand that I'm there to race. If I'm trying to go over to talk to Tony Eury Jr. about my sway bar, that's what I'm thinking about right now, and I'm not gonna think about nothing else 'til I get to him and get that taken care of. You know, I'm still experiencing new things as far as setup technology and things like that, so when I've got a thought in my mind I've got to be thinking just about that. If I stop to sign four autographs, I forgot what I was going to say. I forgot what my whole angle was. Sometimes you have to walk by people, and you're almost to the point of ingnoring them. You think, "Yeah, I could have stopped to sign that autograph, but there's somethin' a little more important going on right now."

Dale Jr.

(On rivalries)" Me and Matt have had a pretty good rivalry since the Busch Series, and I think we'll continue to be very competitive toward each other. Me and Tony Stewart are kinda teasing around with a little bit of a rivalry now, ever since our pit-road bump at Richmond. He's still probably a little, uh, quirked about that; you know how tempermental he can be. But that won't mean anything, because we've done the same thing before in the Busch series. As far as rivalries, I like everbody. There's not really anybody I dislike, or despise. I can get along with anybody. I mean, I'll probably give a guy more benefits of the doubt that anybody in the world."

Dale Jr.

(On more weekdays off)" Yeah, weekdays man. I could deal with that. I mean, I like Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays. You know, everybody's gotta go to the dentist sometime; everybody's gotta get their laundry done. Ain't nobody doing this shit for me."

Dale Jr.