"Behind closed doors he has regrets": Dale Jr. reflects on 'teddy bear' Tony Stewart after fan asks about old reporter incident
On his podcast, The Dale Jr. Download, former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. spoke warmly about his peer, Tony Stewart, from their days racing together in the Cup Series. Earnhardt addressed a question on his podcast episode where a fan wrote in to ask the former driver about an incident involving Stewart making fun of a reporter in 2012 while Dale Jr. was sitting right next to him, holding in his laughter, and if that was a difficult thing to do.
The JR Motorsports team owner reflected on the incident and spoke about his former Cup Series competitor, explaining that his actions were always jovial with no harm intended. Earnhardt also spoke about Stewart having a period during his career where he was upset with someone or the other and had the tendency to give them a piece of his mind, but always apologised if he went too far.
"He had a long decade-long era there where he was mad at everybody at one point, then he was just mad at Joey [Logano], and then he was just mad at one person, or this person, then a few, then he was mad at a couple media people for a while. But, that's what I like about Tony is you always kind of knew where you stood, and if he popped off, he was also the kind of guy that would come over later and go, 'Hey, you know I'm sorry about that, you're awesome.'" [15:39]
Dale Jr. also revealed that behind his feelings of anger towards certain individuals, Tony Stewart was a vulnerable human being.
"One thing about Tony Stewart that a lot of people don't know is he's a teddy bear. He's very sensitive, and behind closed doors, he has regrets and sometimes his actions that he's had in the past. I've learned that he's had some pretty tough times dealing with some of those - the regrets over some of his actions, but so he's a good dude." [16:12]
During their time racing together, Stewart scored three championship titles and 49 race wins, while Dale Jr. took home the Most Popular Driver Award every year of his career since 2003 and 26 race wins.
The story of how Dale Jr. and Tony Stewart became friends started with a scuffle
In a 2019 episode of the podcast, Dale Jr. told the story of how he and Tony Stewart became friends early on in their careers racing in NASCAR. Earnhardt explained that during a race at the Pikes Peak International Raceway in what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series on June 14, 1998, Stewart punted him into Turn one while they were battling it on track. After that, Earnhardt and Stewart's crew chief got into an altercation.
A week later, at the next race in Milwaukee, Stewart came up to Dale Jr. in the pits and asked to be friends, given that they would be racing together for a long time.
"I would never have done this so it probably would have been awkward for a long time if it was up to me,” Earnhardt said. “But he came up to me … and said, ‘Hey man, we’re going to be racing each other a long time, so let’s be friends. Let’s not run into each other anymore. Let’s not drag this out.'"
“He’s like, ‘I’ve got no problem with you. Let’s be cool.’ And we’ve been cool.” [via NASCAR]
Dale Jr. and Tony Stewart joined the NASCAR Cup Series in 1999, even though Earnhardt had only begun racing at that level part-time. They would compete with each other on opposing teams for their entire careers, until Stewart's retirement in 2016, and Earnhardt's retirement a year later.