DALE JR to retire following 2017 season

I just received this email. :D



Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Retire After 2017 Season

Hendrick Motorsports announced Tuesday morning that the 14-time Most Popular driver will retire following the 2017 NASCAR season. Read More

We are honored to host his final Monster Energy Cup Series race. Be here for the last laps.

3-Day Packages for Ford Championship Weekend are now on sale!

*All tickets will go on sale Friday, May 5th*
 
They might have to do away with the most popular driver award after Jr. retires. I don't think Kyle Busch, Joey Logano, or Brad Keselowski are going to garner many votes.
 
I said he was done after 2016 and was very surprised he came back for 2017.
That's kind of what I have been thinking for a while too. To me this is just the "official" confirmation of what many have been thinking,that he was just going through the motions the last couple of years. Kind of like he retired and forgot to tell anyone. Best of luck to him.
 
I just received this email. :D



Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Retire After 2017 Season

Hendrick Motorsports announced Tuesday morning that the 14-time Most Popular driver will retire following the 2017 NASCAR season. Read More

We are honored to host his final Monster Energy Cup Series race. Be here for the last laps.

3-Day Packages for Ford Championship Weekend are now on sale!

*All tickets will go on sale Friday, May 5th*
That's a nice hat he's got on there.
 
You know the sport's in big trouble when "come see this guy's last race" is a bigger deal than "come see the championship race." SMH...

According to Jayski Homestead-Miami Speedway has 46,000 permanent seats so I was wondering why tickets or packages would still even be available for the coronation of a champion.
 
I just received this email. :D



Dale Earnhardt Jr. to Retire After 2017 Season

Hendrick Motorsports announced Tuesday morning that the 14-time Most Popular driver will retire following the 2017 NASCAR season. Read More

We are honored to host his final Monster Energy Cup Series race. Be here for the last laps.

3-Day Packages for Ford Championship Weekend are now on sale!

*All tickets will go on sale Friday, May 5th*

Why is this a Ford Championship Weekend? I want the Chevy Championship Weekend. :owquitit:
 
That's kind of what I have been thinking for a while too. To me this is just the "official" confirmation of what many have been thinking,that he was just going through the motions the last couple of years. Kind of like he retired and forgot to tell anyone. Best of luck to him.
I feel like 2014 and 2015 were good for him obviously. 2016 was lost due to injury but he was running okay before the concussions took a toll. I agree with you this year in that he might be just trying to make it through this year unscathed a bit like Smoke did last year.
 
I hope Dale's in the booth, I have a hard time seeing him being away from the spotlight. I would be interested to see him in the booth instead of DW or paired up with Stevie again in the booth at NBC.
 
Can't wait to see the special paint schemes that are unveiled as the year progresses. I was at the Vegas race this year, but as soon as the news broke this week, the wife and I booked our first trip to Dega in Oct
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pat
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/...1/Leagues-and-Governing-Bodies/Earnhardt.aspx

Reflecting on a day he spent at a racetrack years ago, Jimmy Bruns still remembers the reaction of two Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans when they saw their favorite driver whisked away on a golf cart.

“The look of shock and just overall awe on their face — that they had seen Dale Jr. and were standing three feet away from him — was unlike anything I’d ever seen before,” said Bruns, senior vice president of client services for GMR Marketing, which represents several major NASCAR sponsors. “If I ever think about an interaction I’ve seen between an athlete and fans, it’s those two guys just seeing their hero riding by on a golf cart for four seconds [that stands out].”

It’s that sort of next-level star power that NASCAR will try to replicate starting in 2018, when Earnhardt steps away from Monster Energy Series racing. Earnhardt — NASCAR’s most popular driver every year since 2003 and the son of the late NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt — announced the news last week.

While NASCAR has been undergoing a major changing of the guard in recent years, and Earnhardt’s retirement had been increasingly expected, the confirmation still raises fresh questions about how well-prepared the sport is to deal with a generational shift.

At issue: Will Earnhardt’s absence mean a shrinking pie of fans and money spent in the sport, or a mere redistribution?

“Certainly for us, his father was our all-time winner with 10 wins and Junior is our second with six, and both of their last name is Earnhardt, so there’s some concern there,” said Grant Lynch, chairman of Talladega Superspeedway, a track with one of the most feverish pro-Earnhardt fan bases. “At Alabama and Auburn [with college football], you get new players every three years. Well, our sport has always been, ‘You pick a driver and you stay with him,’ but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of other great drivers coming up with bright futures.”

The outsized magnitude of Earnhardt’s popularity can be seen in numerous ways. He has the highest score of any driver in the U.S. in Nielsen’s N-Score Celebrity Tracker (see chart). His merchandise has typically represented about 25 percent of all driver merchandise sales over the course of his career, Joe Mattes, vice president of marketing and licensing for JR Motorsports, said last year. Earnhardt was the subject of NASCAR’s most-viewed social media post ever, and has by far the most Facebook likes of any driver in NASCAR.

Moreover, Earnhardt has enjoyed a highly lucrative corporate sponsorship and endorsement career, with memorable long-term partners including Budweiser, Chevrolet and Nationwide. Hendrick Motorsports was said to command $1 million per race for each primary sponsor of his No. 88 Chevrolet earlier in his career, a figure that may never be matched again in NASCAR.

As the sport begins to ponder life without Earnhardt on the track, a polling of more than two dozen industry executives last week found that most are confident the sport will continue to be healthy and of a similar magnitude without Earnhardt, though there are some sounding the alarm bells.

From a short-term perspective, most track presidents who spoke last week said they foresee an initial boost coming from the announcement, under the thinking that fans will want to get a last glimpse of Earnhardt on the track. From a long-term perspective, Earnhardt also co-owns JR Motorsports, a NASCAR Xfinity Series team, and has expressed an openness to getting into broadcasting, so executives are hoping that him staying close to the sport the way Jeff Gordon has could further mitigate his on-track absence.

“You’re still going to see Dale Jr. around the track and I think fans will respond favorably to it,” said Eddie Gossage, president of Texas Motor Speedway. “So I don’t know if we’re going to see much change.”

Still, many in the sport said perhaps the most comparable situation they could think of to Earnhardt’s was that of Tiger Woods, who has not retired from golf but who has been saddled by personal issues and injuries in recent years. The golf industry often pointed to a “Tiger Woods Effect” on ratings.

“When Tiger Woods enters a tournament, people watch, and when Dale Earnhardt Jr. is in the lead or hunt for the lead, people watch,” said Andrew Campagnone, senior managing partner at Sports Marketing Consultants. “He transcends the sport, but that’s not going to happen anymore until the next star comes, and who knows who that star will be?”

For now, most are pegging their hopes on young but increasingly established drivers including Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Joey Logano and Erik Jones, along with diverse up-and-comers Daniel Suarez and Darrell Wallace Jr. Many also note that manufacturers including Toyota and Ford have well-invested development programs that are beginning to bear fruit.

But as ratings and attendance continue to decline incrementally in NASCAR, some are concerned about whether there will be substantial Earnhardt attrition, as well as whether the sport could suffer from not having the crossover appeal that Earnhardt brought the sport through his routine appearances in the mainstream media.

Mattes, the vice president at JR Motorsports, which manages licensing for Hendrick Motorsports, said Elliott is seeing year-over-year upticks in sales of his merchandise, a trend that goes against what has historically been seen in NASCAR for second-year Cup drivers. While merchandise is just one element of a driver’s popularity, Mattes thinks it bodes well.

“Historically speaking in our sport, the sophomore season is a slump; you go back to the test of time: The [Tony Stewarts] and [Jimmie Johnsons] and all the guys who came through the system [saw second-year declines],” Mattes said. “That’s a bellwether. … It’s a really great indicator.”

Some sources noted that NASCAR is in the third year of its 10-year media rights deals with NBC Sports and Fox Sports. Theoretically, they said, that makes now a better time to go through a substantial changing of the guard since any renewal talks are likely years away.

“Maybe there’s a little element to that, but all these major sports properties have iconic athletes that come and go over time, and it’s the sport itself and brand that is the main driver,” said Chris Bevilacqua, co-founder of Bevilacqua Helfant Ventures, a media consulting firm. “As a sports property, I think they’ll be fine.”

C5AE3428782F4F9991065092B4F9AEAC.ashx
 
Either one of the network talking heads, Earnhardt ‘n Andy Petree.
 
Here is my take on JR and his career.

First, I think we can all understand why he is calling it quits. One thing that has always stuck out to me in regards to JR is that he has never seemed to truly love racing to me. Now, I know this is strictly my own feelings I get from him and I have no personal dealings with the man, but from afar he has always seemed to do it because it is what his family has always done. I have never had the feeling that it was everything to him the way it appears with other drivers. When I look at Stewart, Larson, and even his Dad, I see and saw guys who lived the sport. I just have never felt that way about JR. He has always seemed like a fish out of water to me. Obviously he can drive and the talent is there, but I have always questioned his heart. Or really his desire for the sport, the competitive gene etc. I truly have no way of knowing, but I always believed he would never be a Cup champion because of what I believe is a lack of desire to be the greatest. It almost feels like he is doing what he does because it is easy to him. As an ambassador to the sport he has been tremendous and it is crazy to think that a guy who has never been a Champion at the highest level has had the staying power that he has had. I credit him and his family name for that, but he has done a great job of taking on that role considering he is not great on the mic and lacks a lot of charisma when the camera is on him. Again a fish out of water. I would be curious what his career would have been had his Dad not died when he was just getting started. I have no doubt that he soured a bit on the sport and everything involved when that happened. I honestly cannot blame him.

At the end of the day he is the greatest ambassador the sport has ever had, but he isn't even a top 20 driver of all time in my opinion. He has never been my cup of tea, but I do not dislike the man either. To me his career has just been good. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I can't help to think what could have been? Either way I hope he stays involved in the sport because the sport needs familiar faces for the fans ad he is good for the sport on a mainstream level. He gives credibility to the sport among the fringe watchers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Acs
At the end of the day he is the greatest ambassador the sport has ever had,
Jeff Gordon is the greatest ambassador the sport has ever had -- and it's not even close. I get what you're saying about Jr...he was the main draw for race fans, and one of the best main draws of all time. But I'm not sure he did much to move the needle for non-race fans. Not even close to what Jeff did...or Petty, Dale Sr, the Allisons etc before Jeff. Your first paragraph sums up nicely all the reasons why.
 
Jeff Gordon is the greatest ambassador the sport has ever had -- and it's not even close. I get what you're saying about Jr...he was the main draw for race fans, and one of the best main draws of all time. But I'm not sure he did much to move the needle for non-race fans. Not even close to what Jeff did...or Petty, Dale Sr, the Allisons etc before Jeff. Your first paragraph sums up nicely all the reasons why.

I will respectfully disagree when it comes to The Allison's, Sr. and Petty. In regards to Gordon, I can see the argument that Jeff made a huge difference for Nascar in terms of expansion to the west coast and not being one of the good ole boys, but Jeff never had the pulling power and mainstream notoriety that Jr has had. Jr came in with a global brand in Budweiser as his primary sponsor, he had the backwards hat, he was referenced by other athletes and he has been welcomed into other realms of sport unlike any other driver we have seen. Jr appealed to a younger demographic when the sport desperately needed it.
 
I don't think Jr attracted new fans into the sport to the extent of his father, Petty etc (not even close to the extent of Gordon). Or brought in any excitement. I think he won over (or filled a void for) many current fans. No doubt he was the most popular driver in the series for over a decade, and by a wide margin. No doubt he's a household name. No doubt he's worth every penny Budweiser (and others) paid him because his fan base is massive. But as far as ambassador - I think he could have done a MUCH better job if he really and truly wanted to in being the face of the sport, representing the sport, getting new blood into the sport, convincing current fans to do more etc etc etc. It's also why I agree with your entire first paragraph. Maybe we just differ on how we define ambassador, or what we expect from an ambassador etc. In my opinion simply being famous & popular =/= being a great ambassador.
 
Gordon is easily the most transcending driver imo. He basically, by himself, changed the perception of NASCAR in a way John Daly and Tiger Woods changed the idea of what a pro golfer was. Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Petty helped elevate it but Gordon took the sport to every corner of the country. The sport was on the rise before his arrival but he blew it up.
 
Here is my take on JR and his career.

First, I think we can all understand why he is calling it quits. One thing that has always stuck out to me in regards to JR is that he has never seemed to truly love racing to me. Now, I know this is strictly my own feelings I get from him and I have no personal dealings with the man, but from afar he has always seemed to do it because it is what his family has always done. I have never had the feeling that it was everything to him the way it appears with other drivers. When I look at Stewart, Larson, and even his Dad, I see and saw guys who lived the sport. I just have never felt that way about JR. He has always seemed like a fish out of water to me. Obviously he can drive and the talent is there, but I have always questioned his heart. Or really his desire for the sport, the competitive gene etc. I truly have no way of knowing, but I always believed he would never be a Cup champion because of what I believe is a lack of desire to be the greatest. It almost feels like he is doing what he does because it is easy to him. As an ambassador to the sport he has been tremendous and it is crazy to think that a guy who has never been a Champion at the highest level has had the staying power that he has had. I credit him and his family name for that, but he has done a great job of taking on that role considering he is not great on the mic and lacks a lot of charisma when the camera is on him. Again a fish out of water. I would be curious what his career would have been had his Dad not died when he was just getting started. I have no doubt that he soured a bit on the sport and everything involved when that happened. I honestly cannot blame him.

At the end of the day he is the greatest ambassador the sport has ever had, but he isn't even a top 20 driver of all time in my opinion. He has never been my cup of tea, but I do not dislike the man either. To me his career has just been good. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I can't help to think what could have been? Either way I hope he stays involved in the sport because the sport needs familiar faces for the fans ad he is good for the sport on a mainstream level. He gives credibility to the sport among the fringe watchers.
If Jr was Sr, I could see your point.
IMO, Jr fizzled in comparison to what Sr meant to the sport.
For many hardcore fans Jr has been a bit of a disappointment. JMO.
 
What would be the 5 most influential drivers ever? Off the top of my head

1. Jeff Gordon - changed the way America looked at NASCAR. He was NASCAR's Tiger Woods....
2. Richard Petty - the sports first marketable superstar
3. Dale Earnhardt - The greatest personality/character the sport ever had. His death changed thy way NASCAR looked at safety...
4. Joe Weatherly - Before my time but seemed like a large personality prior to Petty's takeover
5. Bill Elliott - His 1985 season really propelled the sports rise into the late 80's. First driver on the cover of SI after he won the Winston Million. He was heavily marketed by Ford.

Considered Jimmy Johnson, Tony Stewart, David Pearson, Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip
 
Last edited:
"I drive fastly, call me Jeff Gordon." - Nelly

Yeah, I'm pretty sure JG might be the only NASCAR driver that was ever mentioned in a hit pop/rap song :cool:
 
wait till dale jr leaves, then I think all those saying how great jeff was for the sport will soon figure out just how much dale jr meant. The giant sucking sound of fans leaving will be deafening. basically what we are left with is the guys that made up the NXS series like 10 years ago. jimmie has a couple more years but thats it. The sport is really hurting for personalities. The racing isn't enough to keep fans, personality is what will bring it.
 
wait till dale jr leaves, then I think all those saying how great jeff was for the sport will soon figure out just how much dale jr meant. The giant sucking sound of fans leaving will be deafening. basically what we are left with is the guys that made up the NXS series like 10 years ago. jimmie has a couple more years but thats it. The sport is really hurting for personalities. The racing isn't enough to keep fans, personality is what will bring it.
There are some great personalities up and coming. The problem here is what advertisers can sell to corporations who sponsor the cars. These people really are not very smart how ever the corporations and the media follow their advise because they are suppose to be specialists.
Just look at the commercials on TV today. They actually really turn me off products
because I refuse to dumb myself enough to believe what they say. The other problem is the TV people themselves, they believe their own lies and so people who turn into watch a car race spend most of the time listening to personalities and reruns of accidents. They do take breaks to show you the inside of a car that is nothing more than an advertising billboard.
The one thing they show the least is the racing because they are bored and where never fans to begin with.
 
wait till dale jr leaves, then I think all those saying how great jeff was for the sport will soon figure out just how much dale jr meant. The giant sucking sound of fans leaving will be deafening. basically what we are left with is the guys that made up the NXS series like 10 years ago. jimmie has a couple more years but thats it. The sport is really hurting for personalities. The racing isn't enough to keep fans, personality is what will bring it.
I'm not sure anyone is saying Jr isn't important to the sport. He's VERY important. Also agree that the sport is hurting for personalities. Keep in mind - Gordon was a personality, and still is. Jr was pretty much reclusive until he decided to join Twitter. I truly believe Jr could have done so much more to bring in new blood. I don't really think he was interested in that, which is perfectly fine. I'm not criticizing. His legacy in NASCAR will always be as a fan favorite...not as someone who advanced the sport.
 
If Jr was Sr, I could see your point.
IMO, Jr fizzled in comparison to what Sr meant to the sport.
For many hardcore fans Jr has been a bit of a disappointment. JMO.

Fair, but Jr did not want to be like his a father.

Steve Letarte and Amy really did a number for Jr kicking him into gear later on his career. At one point, Jr was so reclusive that he would practice then run straight into his trailer and Jr even said himself that he did not really put in that much work down the line at DEI. He trusted more of his natural talent and his career could have been better. Went four years and then two years without a win. 2012 was a turning point his concussion really hurt him these last three years this has been been Jr in his prime IMHO.

The DEI Jr could not compete for a championship, but Jr right now is better than ever. Jr is well rounded as he has ever been running well at every configuration of track including damn near winning at Road Courses. This is why it sucks to see him retire at the top of his game because if Jr drove like he has the past four or five years... He could very well have a championship already.
 
Great discussion. My thoughts on Jr is that I don't think he ever wanted to replicate his dad or try to be like him. I think He liked racing to the point where he made it a career but I wouldnt go so far as to say he did it because it was " what he was supposed to do." I think if fans are upset that he didnt turn out like Big E thats on them, it's really not Jr's problem that people feel that way. Hell he had a very solid career with 2 Daytona 500 wins, a few Pepsi/FireCracker 400's and is probably one of the top 5 Restrictor Plate drivers I've ever seen. I feel if things worked out to where his father had survived that crash, stayed at DEI he could have won a Cup or two. But going that time without a win obviously stalled his career, 2014 was awesome to see him win, contend and have fun again. I wish Letarte had stayed with him. As far as being transcendent, sorry Jeff Gordon has him beat by miles there. Jeff was the first driver to appear on mainstream things such as Magazine covers, do SNL, Kelly and Regis, TV Guides ( my mom subscribed) Autoweek regularly, and one of the few to have his own video game.
 
Gore don is the only driver born 'n rasied in "wine country" when the travelin' show is doin' the motorsports entertainment thing at Sears Point 'n born 'n raised in Indiana when the show's at the relic in Indianapolis.

Takes a lot of talent 'n somethin' he'd have never accomplished stayin' with Bill Davis.
 
Back
Top Bottom