"If opportunities were same I'd have stayed" - When Dale Earnhardt Jr. reflected on leaving Teresa Earnhardt-led DEI for his NASCAR future
Dale Earnhardt Jr. once talked about leaving his father’s NASCAR team after his stepmother took over. Earnhardt Jr. said he left because the opportunities to expand the team weren’t the same after his father passed away in 2001.
Dale Jr. is a 50-year-old former NASCAR Cup Series driver who won 26 races in the premier series. He used to run the Dale Earnhardt, Inc. (DEI) team in the early 2000s but left with his stepmother Teresa at the helm. One reason for his departure was his tough relationship with Teresa.
In a 2016 interview with Graham Bensinger, Earnhardt Jr. opened up about leaving the team. He acknowledged not having the best relationship with his stepmother though the business side of running DEI was kept fair.
“It wasn’t always warm and fuzzy… but that was okay. I’ll say one thing about Teresa and she was always fair. She never made an unfair proposition. I never felt like, ‘Man, I’m not getting good enough equipment.’ We just didn’t have much of a relationship.” [4:19]
The 26-time Cup race winner said he would’ve stayed if the opportunities were the same as around 2003 when he could’ve gotten better equipment and cars, and made more revenue.
"If the opportunities were the same, I probably would have stayed. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I can’t even imagine what I would have done if things were different one way or the other.”
After a nine-year run, Dale Earnhardt Jr. left his late father’s team in 2007. He moved to Hendrick Motorsports to drive the No. 88 Chevrolet until his retirement in 2017.
As for DEI, Teresa Earnhardt merged the team with Chip Ganassi Racing in 2009, birthing the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team. However, the team dropped the ‘Earnhardt’ name in 2014, with team boss Chip Ganassi revealing Teresa wasn’t active in the operations.
Today, Dale Earnhardt Jr. runs JR Motorsports, which recently won the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship. Meanwhile, DEI is not associated with any NASCAR team. However, Teresa still owns the trademark to Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s name.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s former crew chief revealed Teresa’s misjudgment in managing DEI
Tony Eury Sr., Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s former crew chief and uncle, shared how Teresa Earnhardt had miscalculated managing DEI. He argued that the team took a toll after she ran it without Dale Jr. considering the former driver had ties with sponsors.
Speaking with Earnhardt Jr. on the Dale Jr. Download podcast in 2022, Eury Sr. said:
"At the end of the day when she's (Teresa) sitting there, she honestly thought that Dale Earnhardt's legacy was so big that she didn't need Dale Jr. and for her personal deal." [15:58]
"Yeah, we want to keep Dale's legacy but at the end of the day DEI can't survive without Dale Jr. Every contract every sponsor everything is tied to him at some way or another...so you're sitting there looking at all that and you're like this ship's taking on water," the former NASCAR crew chief added.
After leaving DEI in 2007, Eury Sr. joined JR Motorsports, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. moving to Hendrick Motorsports. He left the team in 2012 with seven wins, 48 top-5s, and 86 top-10s as crew chief of the No. 88 team, which fielded drivers including Brad Keselowski and Dale Jr. himself.