Top takeaways, surprises from Dale Jr.’s new book

By Bob Pockrass

The first thing one might notice about the new Dale Earnhardt Jr. book “Racing to the Finish” is that it is easy to finish. It’s a book that can be read in an afternoon.

Co-author Ryan McGee, of ESPN, captures Earnhardt’s voice well (OK enough about my co-worker and my wishes for him to pick up the check the next time we meet for coffee).

This book is about Earnhardt’s final six years as a race car driver and why he retired after 2017 following a series of concussions. Fans will love the insight and anyone interested in concussions likely will be educated and inspired by his recovery and honesty.

Here are my five takeaways from the book:

Earnhardt considered retiring in 2016 before diagnosis

This might be the most oh-my-gosh moment of the entire book because conventional wisdom was that Earnhardt didn’t think about retiring until two weeks later when he was diagnosed with a concussion. Nothing seemed wrong with Earnhardt after the Michigan wreck a few weeks earlier, and if he was frustrated with anything, it was all the talk about the aero package that was being tested in that race — he didn’t want to spend time dissecting that topic.

In the book, Earnhardt revealed that he knew something wasn’t right with him while at Daytona in July 2016. Rick Hendrick came to meet with Earnhardt about a contract extension beyond 2017. Earnhardt, who wrote that he could not make the moves in practice he was used to making at Daytona, lost it in an apparent expletive-laced rant. Yes, Earnhardt admitted he used plenty of curse words in a rant with Hendrick. Who cusses when talking to Hendrick when he wants to talk contract extension?

“What he got was a rant from me, telling him I was tired of driving race cars,” Earnhardt wrote. “I yelled it. I told him I was done, that I hated it. I wasn’t having any fun on the racetrack or really anywhere, so I was done.

“I could leave that bus right then and there and walk out of the track and never come back and that would be fine with me.”

Earnhardt raced at Daytona and then Kentucky before being diagnosed with a concussion and having to sit out the second half of the 2016 season. When word came late Thursday afternoon the day before cars were going to be on track at New Hampshire that Earnhardt would sit out, it was a surprise.

Response to his 2012 Kansas wreck unacceptable

When Hendrick Motorsports announced in October 2012 that he wouldn’t race for at least two weeks because of a concussion, the focus came on his first bad wreck that year in a tire test at Kansas. There were many rumors that the medical response was inadequate. Steve O’Donnell said at the time: “He was seen by an ambulance, proper safety measures were in place, he was cleared.”

But in the book, Earnhardt describes crew chief Steve Letarte and Brad Keselowski, who was also at the test, getting to the scene of the crash in Turn 1 before any safety personnel and indicated he was never seen by medical personnel at the scene.

Earnhardt wrote: “It also bothered [Keselowski] that he kept watching for several minutes and a safety crew had yet to arrive, so, like Steve, he jumped into his rental car and hustled out there. … When Brad and Steve got to me, I was leaning up against the wall, still catching my breath. There was still no ambulance, only a tow truck, and it had arrived at the same time as Brad in his rental car. He gave me a lift back to the garage.”

A NASCAR spokesman, when asked if changes had been made, said he was unaware of what differences there are between now and 2012 but NASCAR currently uses a safety checklist for tests and it is essentially a scaled version of a race weekend, that the needed resources are there to ensure a safe and productive testing environment.

It would be nice to believe NASCAR has made improvements since 2012, and those resources to ensure a safe testing environment mean that medical personnel would reach a driver who crashes during a test before those in the garage can get to him in their rental cars. No driver has sounded any issues about that in recent years, but drivers last year said that ambulances got lost trying to get to medical centers on race days.

Earnhardt worried about impact of another concussion

One of the biggest elements of Earnhardt’s recovery was Dr. Micky Collins indicating he could get Earnhardt better to the point where if he had similar accidents, he could handle them better and potentially not suffer a concussion.

That philosophy seemed new as the prevailing thought was that every concussion can make things worse, that while someone might get better, that another similar hit would result in another concussion. The perception is that it is like cigarette use — you can’t undo the damage but the next cigarette could cause more harm.

So when reading the book, it’s not hard to see where Earnhardt was coming from when he admitted that as he raced in 2017, he worried if another accident would affect his long-term health. He believed what Collins was telling him but only up to a point.

“[CoIlins] told me he understood why I would worry like I did, but he also assured me that even if I was in a crash that hurt me again, he had no doubts whatsoever that he could get me back to 100 percent,” Earnhardt wrote. “As much as I love and respect Micky, I’ve never been able to fully believe that. Not the physical part. I know he has the tools, science and staff to make me better again if they had to do it. They’ve proven that twice already.

“But when he said that to me, I didn’t believe I could ever be back to 100 percent mentally. I’m not talking about brain damage. I’m talking about state of mind.”

If anything in the book was a message of why he retired, that seemed to resonate the most.

Earnhardt admits difficulty with telling people his injuries

Even after he missed two weeks in 2012 because of a concussion, Earnhardt wasn’t telling people how bad he felt after hard accidents — or even not-so-hard accidents.

While he emphasizes throughout the book that drivers need to tell their teams and doctors about what they are feeling, his actions show just how difficult it is. He doesn’t say it in the book, but the perception is that Earnhardt should have had an easier time with this than other drivers because as the sport’s most popular driver, he would always have people wanting him to drive for their team. Look at Brian Vickers — blood clots ended his career because no one was willing to take a chance on him and whether he’d have a recurrence.

He wrote about how in 2012 at Martinsville, he told the media he would be a lot more responsible if he had symptoms after an accident. He felt he had made a promise to be open.

“That promise was easy to stick to in 2013, when there were no symptoms,” Earnhardt wrote. “In 2014, in a position to maybe finally win a championship, I broke that promise. I was keeping secrets about what was happening inside my head. Again.”

Earnhardt stories consistent with past interviews

Those expecting Earnhardt to say, “I had to lie to the media” about this or that won’t find much of that in the book. He goes deeper into areas that he might have left unsaid at the time, but there isn’t a moment when reading the book where one would think “that’s not what he said at the time.”

No one obviously knows for sure if he is giving 100 percent of the entire story in each and every instance, but he is not changing his story. The anxiety he showed publicly throughout the last six years was evident in the book.

And anyone who doubts when Earnhardt says in book tour interviews that he wrote the book in hopes of helping others, they get that sense when reading the book as Earnhardt writes several times urging people to get help.

Some probably will feel he even goes overboard in pleading for people to get help. But that’s OK. Because it enhances the best part of the book:

It is authentic.

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By Ricky Craven

This book is brilliantly written and captures the transparency of Dale Jr.

Ryan McGee did a fabulous job at authoring the true emotion from our sport’s most popular driver. It’s very clear that everybody involved in this project had a very high level of trust and confidence in one another and in what they were creating.

My biggest impressions:

Earnhardt’s openness is healthy

His description of symptoms as well as his illustrations of the emotion associated with all of this are done with the highest level of integrity. He holds nothing back in explaining the risk and insecurity he felt of exposing his injuries.

There is a stigma associated with head injuries. … I know because I’ve lived it.

But Dale Jr. speaking openly of it, and not trying to disguise it, is healthy and comforting for me to read. I believe it will be healthy for our colleagues and for all young aspiring race car drivers.

This quote: “They will cut you from the herd if they think you’re damaged goods.” It is a very real emotion that exists for any driver having been injured in a race car.

Earnhardt’s story continues his contribution

Reading this book actually took me back to one of the darkest times in our sport’s history: The year we lost our leader in the garage of the garage, leader of our sport.

I don’t believe there is a driver that contributed more to our being able to move past deal Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death than that of his son Dale Jr. and the way he soldiered on, led by example, spoke openly and seemed to hide nothing.

In 2001, we needed someone to say, “It’s going to be OK.”

Dale Jr. in his own way did that! This feels like a second act because I can’t think of another driver who could have pulled this off or had near the positive impact this book will have in educating everyone in our industry.

It exposes the risks, liabilities and vulnerabilities from a race car driver’s perspective of “playing hurt.”

I finally understand his relief

A couple of days before Dale Jr.’s final Cup series race, I tracked him down in the garage area at Homestead-Miami Speedway. I reached out my hand. I wanted to congratulate him and express my appreciation for how much he had contributed to NASCAR because we all benefited from the work Dale Jr. had done.

But instead of shaking hands, he gave me a big hug and said, “We made it!”

I saw a level of relief in his eyes and in his expression that day that I’ve never completely understood … until I read this book!

Even though I have a deep, clear understanding of competing at NASCAR’s highest level compromised, or less than 100 percent, I did not know nor understand how deeply hurt both physically and mentally Dale Jr. had been during much of his career.

Earnhardt is a pro and not a quitter

This book was very inspiring.

Dale Jr. deserves to be described as a true professional not only in the way he went about winning 26 races at NASCAR’s highest level but perhaps, most importantly, because of the way he managed his career through arguably the greatest adversity any NASCAR Cup Series driver had ever experienced.

Despite that adversity, Dale Jr. never quit on the sport.

He finished the job!