Playboy Interview: Dale Earnhardt Jr.

How tough is Dale Earnhardt Jr.? How tightly wound is Nascar's favorite son, the speed-burning scion of the great Intimidator himself?

Well, hell, he'll be happy to tell you—once he wakes up.

Earnhardt Jr., often called Little E or just Junior, wears his fame as casually as his T-shirt and jeans. He loves his sleep, too, and after a night of partying he'll snooze through lunchtime, or nod off on his couch at the drop of a Budweiser baseball cap. Days of Thunder? More like days of slumber.

But strap Earnhardt into a 780-horse-power, quarter-million-dollar race car and he morphs into a different guy—a feared competitor who will run over you at 200 miles per hour. With the hair-trigger reflexes and brass balls he inherited from his dad, the seven-time Winston Cup champ, Earnhardt Jr. won two Winston Cup races in 2000 and earned more than $2 million. This year he's among the sport's leaders in winnings and Winston Cup points. At 26 he is a crossover star, the first stock car hero to score with the MTV crowd. That means wealth, women and song for an ultraeligible bachelor who built a little party nook in his basement—a full-scale nightclub with a smoke machine, nuclear sound system and dance-floor space for 225 revelers.

Yes, it is definitely a blast to be Junior. But it is also a damn heavy load. It always was, and then it became infinitely more complicated on February 18, 2001, when his father died in a crash on the last turn during the last lap of the Daytona 500. Since that day, Little E has done a lot of growing up. He has defended Sterling Marlin, the driver who bumped the Intimidator's famed black number three car moments before the crash. Dale Jr. has also taken on a larger role at Dale Earnhardt Inc., his father's multimillion-dollar company. And of course he has raced harder than ever, starting only eight days after Dale Sr.'s death, when he drove in the Dura Lube 400 and crashed on the first lap.

His surprising views on that wreck—and on topics that include speed, honor, fear and contraception—make this an extraordinary sports interview. But, then, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has never lived an ordinary life.

He was born on October 10, 1974, four and a half years before his dad's Winston Cup debut. In those days the elder Earnhardt wasn't the Intimidator to anybody but his family. Young Dale, whose parents divorced when he was three, grew up idolizing his father, a stern, even chilly figure who responded to Junior's boyhood mischief by sending him to military school.

Dale Sr. wasn't a full-time dad. He was busy building his legend—winning Rookie of the Year and Winston Cup titles back-to-back, winning two Driver of the Year awards, winning 34 times at Daytona International Speedway, winning more than $41 million for driving like a madman. How tough was the man in black? Once, when a crash sent another car flying and the 3000-pound vehicle landed on the Intimidator's car, he carried it piggyback to the finish line and won by a split second. As the Earnhardt legend grew, so did the Earnhardt fortune. Dale Sr. became a motor-sports mogul whose private fleet included a helicopter, a Learjet and another plane; his reported earnings in 1999 were $26.5 million.

Dale Jr. took up stock car racing when he was 17, hoping to win a couple hundred bucks. He raced at dusty ovals all over the Carolinas, winning only three times in more than 100 tries. Then came 1996, when the Intimidator gave his 21-year-old son a car to drive in Nascar's Busch Series, the sport's top minor-league circuit. That's where Junior became a star. Zooming to Busch Series crowns in 1998 and 1999 (fans called him the Dominator), he earned a ride in the big show, the Winston Cup series, where the kid in the Bud-red number eight car won two races in his rookie year. Despite cooling off and finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting to Matt Kenseth, Junior was Nascar's biggest new star since Jeff Gordon.

Then came the 2001 Daytona 500, the race that took his father's life and changed Junior's life forever. Young Dale has shown skill and courage at death-defying speeds ever since that cataclysmic day at Daytona.

We sent sportswriter Kevin Cook to North Carolina to see how the young man who has been called "the future of Nascar" is dealing with his past, present and future. Cook reports:

"From the Charlotte airport you take the Billy Graham Park and I-77 to Mooresville, North Carolina, where Main Street dozes in the shadow of a grain silo. Just down the road is the headquarters of Dale Earnhardt Inc., a sleek 108,000-square-foot complex that racing folks call the Garage Mahal. Across the road is a smaller palace: a little blue house with a swimming pool and a brown brick garage out back. This is Junior's house, a celebrity hangout nicknamed Junior's Place—the only North Carolina 'nightclub' worthy of an MTV special.

"Small and wiry, with a wispy red mustache and goatee, Dale Jr. yawned a lot at first. I think the guy needs more sleep. But when something sparks his interest or pisses him off, his eyes narrow and you feel the sharp focus he brings to his dangerous job. I suspect he loves to race but is starting to hate the complexities that fame—not just success, but being his father's son—adds to his life. He still seems a little overwhelmed at the thought of being the only living Dale Earnhardt."

[Q] Playboy: Let's start fast. How does it feel when you hit a wall at 190 miles per hour?

[A] Earnhardt: It hurts! I blew a tire at California this year and thought, I am going to hit the wall. In that spot you're not in charge of the car. You're just sliding. You turn the wheel all the way left and nothing happens. You can't help tensing up, but at the moment you smack the wall, you have to go limp, relax all your muscles. If you put your arm out straight, you'll get a compound fracture in your forearm.

[Q] Playboy: Is that instinct, or did you learn how to crash?

[A] Earnhardt: I'm ashamed to say that I've wrecked 10 or 15 times, enough to really know how.

[Q] Playboy: How about after the crash?

[A] Earnhardt: You've done 15 to 50 feet of sliding, then smack! It stuns you for a second. You come off the wall and you're still moving, but you can't steer or slow down. Will you hit something else? Are you in oncoming traffic, with cars going 200 miles an hour? Once you get the car stopped, you're like this [touching his arms and legs]. Any sharp pains? If not, pull your window net down—that's the signal you're OK.

[Q] Playboy: After your tire blew in this year's NAPA Auto Parts 500, was your radio still working?

[A] Earnhardt: I could hear my crew asking about the backup car. I ain't even stopped! Next thing I heard was, "Get the backup car out there, damn it!"

[Q] Playboy: We have to talk about your father's crash. Late in this year's Daytona 500, your team was running one-two-three. It was Michael Waltrip, you and then your father in third. But Sterling Marlin was gaining. It was your dad's job to get in Marlin's way. Here's how one newspaper put it: "It appeared that Earnhardt was willing to wreck his own car to keep Marlin behind him." Is that true?

[A] Earnhardt: He didn't decide to wreck. Michael was leading the race. I was in second, so I was in the same situation as my father. You want to win, but it's your teammate up there. If you hold your position and he wins, the team wins.

[Q] Playboy: In that spot, you take one for the team.

[A] Earnhardt: Right. That's what he was doing.

[Q] Playboy: What were you thinking during that last lap?

[A] Earnhardt: That I want to win the Daytona 500. But if I try to pass Michael and then for some reason I don't win, I'd never hear the end of it from my father. "You fucked up," he'd say. "You should have stayed in line!"

[Q] Playboy: After the race, with Marlin getting death threats from some Earnhardt fans, you said that blaming Marlin for your father's death "is ridiculous and I will not tolerate that."

[A] Earnhardt: Sterling did nothing wrong.

[Q] Playboy: But he bumped the number three car.

[A] Earnhardt: That's not wrong. For a second, there was room for him to go under my father. My father moved down to close that hole, and Sterling wasn't of a mind to get out of the way, that's all. I spoke to him after. I said I will always be his friend. One day he may feel some guilt, I don't know. If he ever wants to talk to me, I'll talk.

[Q] Playboy: Could you see the crash?

[A] Earnhardt:[Nodding] You're doing quick glances at the mirror—I saw smoke and cars at the wrong angles, cars crashing. Then the race ends and I'm excited. "Man, I finished second in the Daytona 500!" Even though he crashed, my father was going to be happy about that. I went looking for him, but he wasn't at the care center. Some cops took me to the hospital. I was about five minutes behind him. Never saw him. I'm sure I could have if I'd wanted to, but I didn't, not after I knew.

[Q] Playboy: A week later you raced again, and crashed.

[A] Earnhardt: A guy just plowed into me. Zipped me right into the wall. Everyone talked about how it looked just like my dad's wreck. That was embarrassing.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do wrong?

[A] Earnhardt: Nothing. I got put into the wall.

[Q] Playboy: Then why be embarrassed? Just because the crashes looked alike?

[A] Earnhardt: Yes. I was ashamed that I mocked my father.

[Q] Playboy: At a press conference in May, you said you knew what really happened when your father crashed. "I know what the facts are," you said, but "I'm not going to tell." What is it that you know?

[A] Earnhardt: I know my father's seat belt broke.

[Q] Playboy: That's what Nascar has been saying, but there was an emergency medical technician who claimed the belt was intact. How do you know he was wrong?

[A] Earnhardt: By my father's injuries. He had impact with the steering wheel. That means the belt had broken, or he couldn't have been that far forward. That's a long way—you could hit your chin on the wheel, maybe, but not your chest. He had broken ribs from the wheel, and that has to mean a broken belt.

[Q] Playboy: Some people think you have some information that Nascar hasn't released.

[A] Earnhardt: No, it's from looking at the car and knowing what his injuries were—those things tell me what happened.

[Q] Playboy: How has his death changed you?

[A] Earnhardt: It brings death closer. In this job your instinct is to block it out. Now it's always there. But you know what? I'm more determined to succeed. Before, I wanted to be a champion. Now I'm going to be a champion, I have to be a champion.

[Q] Playboy: How much of your skill is inherited? Do you have better genes than other drivers?

[A] Earnhardt: Some of it's reaction time and peripheral vision. People say that my dad had eyes in the back of his head, and I'm good that way, too. My pulse rate's slower than average, like his was. But there's confidence, too. Just being around him, seeing him win all those races, gives me an edge over a guy whose father wasn't a driver. I'll go up against that guy, thinking I'm going to beat him because it's in my blood. Even if I didn't inherit my father's ability, that helps.

[Q] Playboy: Your dad won the IROC, the International Race of Champions, last year. There was a funny moment before the race: His car was directly behind yours in the grid, and he bumped you a couple of times.

[A] Earnhardt: He was fucking with me. Like saying, "Hi, kid." I would have bumped him, but I qualified higher.

[Q] Playboy: You crashed in that race. He went on to win, bumping Mark Martin and slipping past Martin on the last lap. Do you relish moments like that? Was that a classic?

[A] Earnhardt: Well, no. What he did that day—passing in the last corner—it's very brilliant, awesome and exciting. But there's nothing special about the move itself. It's a move that happened 150 times in the race. But he waited, and saved it for that last moment, and got a win out of it.

[Q] Playboy: Your dad was the sport's most famous tough guy. Was he tough at home, too?

[A] Earnhardt: When I was about seven, he went out one day to cut down a tree. Climbed up with a chain saw to cut the limbs off. He's up there in a denim shirt, with gloves and boots and his sunglasses, sawing away. After about 15 minutes he comes down and his glove is torn. There's jagged skin on the back of his hand, and I can see down to the bone. He says, "Damn it." I'm like, "Daddy, you're cut bad. You need stitches." But he says it's OK. "Cut it when I first got up the tree, but I was already up there, so I stayed."

[Q] Playboy: You were three years old when your parents divorced. At first you lived with your mother, Brenda, who was his second wife.

[A] Earnhardt: Until I was six. Then one morning I wake up and the kitchen's on fire. Something in the wiring. That house burned down, and I went to live with my dad.

[Q] Playboy: Had he wanted custody before that?

[A] Earnhardt: No.

[Q] Playboy: You lived with your father and Teresa, his third wife. They hired nannies to look after you.

[A] Earnhardt: That was weird, because a nanny is a stranger. They weren't bad, but they were strict. Nannies want to make a good impression on their employers, so they're tough on the kids.

[Q] Playboy: Did you watch your father's races on TV?

[A] Earnhardt: I loved that. I would race my Matchbox cars on the floor while he was racing on TV. I didn't really miss him on those days. I did on the weekdays, though. I felt like when the race was over, he'd come home. But he was always working on his cars.

[Q] Playboy: Where was your mother?

[A] Earnhardt: She married a fireman and moved to Virginia. We only saw her twice a year, so it was hard to keep a connection. Now she's down here again—my sister Kelley just had a baby, so our mama's back here to help.

[Q] Playboy: It's hard to picture the Intimidator sitting you down for a talk about the birds and the bees.

[A] Earnhardt: We were on the way to a racetrack somewhere. I was 12, and I'd learned about sex in school, but he had some things to tell me. "Use a rubber," he said. He was adamant about that: "Wear a rubber and don't get some girl pregnant. Don't get in that situation when you're just starting out in life." See, that's the trap he fell into. My brother Kerry, too.

[Q] Playboy: They both got girlfriends pregnant and married young?

[A] Earnhardt: Yes. "So if you think you won't get a girl pregnant because you pull out in time," my father says, "well, one time you'll make a mistake." I was a little embarrassed, really. I didn't want to hear that from my daddy.

[Q] Playboy: A lot of boys at that age think, I wish I had that problem.

[A] Earnhardt: That's exactly how I felt. You're 12, you and your buddies are stealing Playboys, wondering if you'll ever get lucky enough to be with a girl.

[Q] Playboy: How long did it take you?

[A] Earnhardt: About six years. The girl I lost my virginity to, I knew her all through high school. She was the second-best-looking girl in my class, and she flirted with me. We did that high school date deal, where you hold hands in the hall and go out for a couple of weeks, and then you break up over the telephone. She basically ruined me by dumping me, because I just wanted her more. Finally, after we're out of high school, I asked her out again. By then I was 18.

[Q] Playboy: Still a virgin at 18?

[A] Earnhardt: Yes. And she tore me up in my trailer.

[Q] Playboy: Did you follow your father's advice?

[A] Earnhardt: About the rubber? Yes, I did. We went at it again and again. It lasted 30 or 40 minutes. I thought I did pretty good. I'm still an endurance type, and if I fail the endurance test, I'm quick to get going again.

[Q] Playboy: They call that a man's refractory period.

[A] Earnhardt: Mine's about three or four minutes. Got to use it while you can.

[Q] Playboy: Here's the Wilt Chamberlain question: How many partners, career total?

[A] Earnhardt: Not so many. Fifteen to 20.

[Q] Playboy: Would they call you a gentle lover or a rambunctious one?

[A] Earnhardt: In the middle, but more toward rambunctious. I'm careful who I'm with. A couple years ago, when I started seeing what a little success can do, I thought, Man, this could get to where girls are knocking on my door—and I'm gonna let 'em all in! But it doesn't work that way. I am real fucking scared of contracting a disease, for one thing. Or just making a mistake, like my dad talked about. I don't want a kid running around right now, because he wouldn't turn out right. He would be spoiled and ruined. He'd be a troublemaker.

[Q] Playboy: Are you in a relationship now?

[A] Earnhardt: Just got out of one. It's a hard thing—with the attention I've been getting, it's harder to know if somebody loves you for you. But the relationship thing is largely my fault. When I start dating someone it's awesome, but after a while I start resisting it. Two things I really enjoy are being with the guys and being by myself, but now there's less of both. When I race on weekends, the girl can't understand why I don't want her there. I could afford to take her, right? So if I don't, she resents me and I feel like a bastard.

[Q] Playboy: Other than your birds-and-bees talk, did your dad give you advice about girls?

[A] Earnhardt: Not too much. This one girl was hot as hell, and I brought her around to meet him. Next day he says, "That girl smokes pot." I knew it was true, but I said, "No, she don't." He says, "I know she does, and I know where she gets it."

[Q] Playboy: She wasn't the only one.

[A] Earnhardt: I tried this and that, just like everybody else in the fucking world. Smoking weed at a party. Trying mushrooms. It was fun.

[Q] Playboy: What's Nascar's drug policy?

[A] Earnhardt: Nascar doesn't have a drug policy. If they find out that you're doing something—and they will find out—they have a fatherly way of handling it. Me, I figured out what was cool to do, and what wasn't cool, before I started driving in the big time.

[Q] Playboy: What did you get the Intimidator for Father's Day?

[A] Earnhardt: A card, something like that. There wasn't that much going on between us.

[Q] Playboy: He wasn't the world's warmest dad.

[A] Earnhardt: But he was busting his ass and putting food on the table. I missed him bad sometimes, but when he was around it was great. We'd always have a big time at Christmas. We knew he loved us. And, looking back, I think that if he had not been so adamant about his career, the Earnhardts wouldn't be as fortunate as we are now.

[Q] Playboy: He packed you off to military school, though.

[A] Earnhardt: Well, I got kicked out of Christian school. Not for anything serious—a couple of fights, talking in class, sleeping in class—but it got me dismissed. So he and Teresa sent me to Oak Ridge Military Academy, here in North Carolina. Had to get up every morning at six when they blew the bugle. Shoes had to be gleaming, the buckles and buttons on your uniform, too. After school it was study from seven to nine, then run to brush your teeth and lights out.

[Q] Playboy: Did you go home on weekends?

[A] Earnhardt: If you got too many demerits, you couldn't. And my dad was racing, so sometimes I wouldn't go home because he wasn't there. But I'm not complaining. Once it was over, I knew more than the guy up the street who hadn't been to military school. I was more like an adult.

[Q] Playboy: From there you went to Mooresville Senior High. You were Little E, son of the town's biggest hero----

[A] Earnhardt: But for some reason that worked against me. It wasn't cool to be Dale Earnhardt's son. I wasn't one of the preps or the fucking jocks. I was too small for football, so I played soccer my freshman year. Our soccer team went to the nationals every year, so the soccer guys were popular. But even when I was on the team, I wasn't one of them, couldn't be. Looking at them walking around in their polo shirts with their collars buttoned up—I thought they were a bunch of idiots.

[Q] Playboy: What did you do after school?

[A] Earnhardt: Shoveled shit. That was my job—get home from school, go straight to the horse barn and shovel it out. It's hard work, and you don't even want to think about the smell.

[Q] Playboy: The Earnhardts still own horses, don't they?

[A] Earnhardt: We've got eight horses. One is a Clydesdale that Budweiser sent me, a badass big horse.

[Q] Playboy: After high school you worked at your dad's auto dealership.

[A] Earnhardt: I did a lot of oil changes. Made $16,000 a year. That was a job I liked—working with friends in the shop. We'd go to the same place for lunch every day and party at night. This went on a few years. I'd have parties in the double-wide trailer I lived in, and we'd get so damn rowdy we'd break the doors off. You would tackle a guy and push him through a door for the hell of it. I'd have to go buy new hinges and put my doors back on.

[A] It was a normal life, as opposed to this. Now my life changes all the time. People come and go, and you worry about trust and loyalty.

[Q] Playboy: Success doesn't simplify things, it complicates them.

[A] Earnhardt: That it does.

[Q] Playboy: Is it worth it?

[A] Earnhardt: The racing is great. Drivers like to downplay the sheer speed of it. They always say, "Aw, it's just like driving around town." But it's really cool! It's like water skiing—the first time you water-ski you're yelling, "Slow down!" Then you get to liking it and you're hauling ass, cutting cones and yelling, "Faster!" I remember my first time driving at Talladega, the fastest big-ass track we run on. I'm 18 years old, going down the back straightaway. I ain't quite up to full speed, but I'm going fast enough to doubt I can make it around the corner without hitting the wall.

[Q] Playboy: How fast?

[A] Earnhardt: Getting toward 195. So I'm looking at the corner way down there ahead of me, thinking, No way can I turn that corner. But they say you go around Talladega wide open. You just hold her down and go. So I did, and turned that corner, and damn—it was great. The car sticks to the ground better than you'd think. It feels like a huge hand is pushing down on you. The faster you go, the more air you have pushing down, and the better the car sticks.

[Q] Playboy: You'll use another car's draft to pull you along, too.

[A] Earnhardt: The air changes lots of things. My car might be turning great when I'm by myself, taking the corners fast, but if I get up behind somebody, I won't have that direct air on the nose of my car. I'm sharing part of his air, and now my front wheels want to slide. So I'll try to poke a headlight out, to get a little air on the nose. Then I can turn better.

[Q] Playboy: When you're stalking another car, looking to pass, what are you looking at?

[A] Earnhardt: You're searching for flaws—mistakes that are repetitive. Maybe he's overdriving a corner, every corner, and you're handling better than him when you exit the corner.

[Q] Playboy: Are you watching his tires? His bumper?

[A] Earnhardt: A lot of drivers do that, but I look at the left front tire. If he goes into a corner and he's turning it excessively, I know his car is tight. If he's turning that wheel more than I'm turning mine, he's tight. So if I push him—if I force the issue—I can make him move up the bank in a corner, out of my way.

[Q] Playboy: Tight means what?

[A] Earnhardt: It means his front won't turn the way he wants. He's fighting it in the corners, and I can take advantage of that.

[Q] Playboy: When do you make your move?

[A] Earnhardt: Soon. Maybe the next turn. Most tracks we run on, the corners are the same at both ends, so if he's doing that at one end, he'll do it at the other. That gives me four chances. Sooner or later, I'm gonna get by him.

[Q] Playboy: You can't do it all by yourself. Nascar drivers often succeed by cooperating—at least for a few laps. How do you tell another driver, "Let's work together and pass these guys"?

[A] Earnhardt: You might put out a straight hand: "Let's go this way." It doesn't matter who the guy is. It's whoever the hell is in front of you or behind you.

[Q] Playboy: How do you dissolve that relationship? There comes a point where you and he are running first and second, and now you're enemies.

[A] Earnhardt: That's right.

[Q] Playboy: How do you signal, OK, we're not working together anymore----

[A] Earnhardt: You don't.

[Q] Playboy: ----and bump and pass the guy you've been working with?

[A] Earnhardt: When you're ready.

[Q] Playboy: And he's not.

[A] Earnhardt:[Grinning] That is what it's all about.

[Q] Playboy: Do you ever get bored, bombing around racetracks?

[A] Earnhardt: Actually, that can happen at Talladega. I've run two or three 500-mile Winston Cup races there, and three or four Busch races, and it's just so big you can entirely drop your guard—the whole back straightaway you're just holding the wheel straight for 15 or 20 seconds. Forever. So to go out there and race around by myself is boring as hell.

[Q] Playboy: You'd rather be in traffic.

[A] Earnhardt: It's not boring. It's when there's almost a wreck, or when somebody gets up close in back of you and you almost lose control—that's when you remember how fast you're going.

[Q] Playboy: A big track like Talladega poses other problems, too.

[A] Earnhardt: It sure does. After that long straight, if you don't go into the corner exactly right—if you miss by the slightest bit—you know you're screwed. You just messed up a lap that was an entire minute long, and now you've got to run another whole lap trying to make that time up.

[Q] Playboy: How much of winning is driving talent, and how much is having a good car?

[A] Earnhardt: Depends on the track. At a small racetrack like Richmond, where handling is everything, it's almost all car. The guy who wins is no better than the guy in fifth place. He'll be pulling away and you say, "Damn, his car turns better than mine." You never say, "He's a better driver than me."

[A] Five or six years ago it was more about the driver. Nowadays the cars are so close technologywise, so competitive, that you can't take an illhandling car and force it into contention. Right now I'd say it's 75 percent car, 25 percent driver.

[Q] Playboy: Do Nascar drivers and their crews cheat?

[A] Earnhardt: The cheating in Nascar is so good that a guy got caught during qualifying at Daytona, and I'm not sure what he did.

[Q] Playboy: You're talking about Jerry Nadeau.

[A] Earnhardt: Guys will cut a little piece of a car in half, hollow it out and weld it back together. Other stuff is so technical it'd take a scientist to explain it.

[Q] Playboy: The drivers and crews who get caught aren't punished much. They are fined, but that's it.

[A] Earnhardt: Yeah, it's bullshit. If a guy's caught cheating after he wins a race, I'd take the win away.

[Q] Playboy: Have you ever been fined for cheating?

[A] Earnhardt: No, just fighting. One day Tony Stewart and I were banging around on the track—no more than what you see every week. So the message comes down: "Come to the Nascar trailer." It's like the principal's office. So me and Tony Eury, my crew chief, go up there, and here comes Stewart and his crew chief. Stewart and I were laughing, but his crew chief starts running his mouth. "You're a daddy's boy," he says. "You got everything handed to you." I just flew off the damn handle and started swinging. And Nascar fined me $5000. I think they called it "conduct unbecoming a driver."

[Q] Playboy: You tangled with Jeff Burton at the 1999 NAPA 300.

[A] Earnhardt: That's the time I was passing the pit exit at 195 miles an hour, and guys were pulling off the racetrack going 100 less than me. So here I come, and the force of my car moving past another car pushes me into a third car and we all crash. It was a hell of a wreck, just awesome.

[Q] Playboy: Awesome?

[A] Earnhardt: Like bowling. The ball goes down there and, boom, the pins go flying. It's a huge strike! But those guys were pissed, coming into my garage, saying, "What the hell were you thinking?" I said, "Dude, stay the hell away from me."

[Q] Playboy: How close were you to fighting?

[A] Earnhardt: Oh, not very. I don't know if drivers really get that angry. I mean, when Rusty Wallace and Jeff Gordon got hot at each other recently, were they really going to punch each other? Not even close. I think national TV and the corporate involvement in Nascar have shined the thing up to where drivers are businesslike. They'll shake their fist and go, "What the fuck were you doing? Shit!" Then it's "OK, I gotta go home now—see ya!"

[Q] Playboy: Does that hurt the sport?

[A] Earnhardt: No, because when you're strapped in that car, it's a heated fight. It's not "my sponsor's better than your sponsor," or "me and my fans against you and your fans." It's a one-on-one battle—a series of one-on-one battles with the guys you need to pass, through the entire race. But when the fight's over, a guy won't swing his fist at that other driver like he swung at him with his race car. He gets out of the car and he sees the crowd, the cameras. He's back to civilization again.

[Q] Playboy: Can you hear the crowd?

[A] Earnhardt: Sometimes, and it charges me up. I want them to like me. Standing there for driver introductions before a race, I'll watch the other drivers walk across the stage, and listen to the fans' reactions. There will be 10,000 fans, and some guys only get a couple of claps. Here's a guy competing at this level, risking everything, and nobody claps. And you know what? He doesn't care! He's just like, "Which way to my car?"

[A] Jeff Gordon will walk across and there's a mix of cheers and boos. I'm thinking, Man, that would make me feel bad. I never want to get booed.

[Q] Playboy: This year, many Nascar races have started with tributes to your father. Does that mess with your mind?

[A] Earnhardt: It's odd as hell. I'm glad people think that much of him, but right at that moment I'm ready to race. The crowd's hollering. I'm pumped. "And now, a moment of silence." And I might have a little memory, like a time we went deer hunting. Next thing it's "Gentlemen, start your engines," and I'm like, "Oh, shit."

[Q] Playboy: Does a race wear you out more mentally or physically?

[A] Earnhardt: It wears out my neck. There's a headrest in the car, but when you're driving hard you are not laying your head back. You're right up on the wheel, leaning into the corner. It's like leaning into a strong wind all day. After a race my neck hurts, mostly on the left side.

[Q] Playboy: What's your pain reliever?

[A] Earnhardt: Beer. If I'm sore after a race, I'll drink four or five beers and get in a good mood.

[Q] Playboy: You earned $515,000 for winning last year's Winston All-Star race. How much of that do you get to keep?

[A] Earnhardt: It's based on incentives. The higher I finish, the more I keep. If I win a race, I get 45 percent. For anything outside the top 10, it goes down to 30 percent.

[Q] Playboy: You've crashed quite a bit on racetracks. Any adventures as a civilian driver?

[A] Earnhardt: I had four speeding tickets by the time I was 18, but none since. Got those four tickets from four different officers, and each one told me he gave my daddy his first speeding ticket. It's their claim to fame, but they can't all be right.

[A] I also had a 1991 S-10 extended-cab pickup that I wrecked a bunch. Just kept flipping it over. I'd come to a 90-degree corner out in the country. There'd be signs with arrows pointing to the turn, and I'd take out three of those signs. Once I hit some ice and rolled that truck into a ditch.

[Q] Playboy: Did you feel safe, crashing at only 50 or 60 miles an hour?

[A] Earnhardt: You're safer in a race car, which will mash like an accordion from the nose all the way to the fire wall. A street vehicle doesn't have so many crush zones. The front will mash back only so far, then it stops and forces you to take the rest of the blow.

[Q] Playboy: What did your dad say when you flipped your truck?

[A] Earnhardt: I thought he'd be mad, but he laughed.

[Q] Playboy: He has only been gone for a few months. Do you find yourself talking to him, wondering what he'd say?

[A] Earnhardt: Not out loud, but I'll think those things. For instance, I wanted a big old air compressor for the shop in my backyard. He said no, get a small one. Now, with him gone, I'll make that decision. That's a petty thing, but I still wonder if I could have talked him into it. Maybe I'll go through my whole life wondering stuff like that. It might get harder, too. Right now I can recall his demeanor, I can see him. Ten years from now it will be harder to know what he'd want us to do.

[Q] Playboy: What about the Earnhardt empire? Your stepmother, Teresa, has taken over much of the decision making. You told one reporter that you trust her even more than you trusted your father.

[A] Earnhardt: Financially, yes. He always joked that before he met Teresa, he owed the bank money. Afterward, the bank owed him.

[Q] Playboy: A lot of rich families fight over what they inherit.

[A] Earnhardt: The way I see it, Teresa is almost as responsible for what we have as Dad was. I sure didn't build it. They created it, and if she wants it, it's hers.

[Q] Playboy: Let's talk about how you got started in racing. You raced go-carts first.

[A] Earnhardt: I was only 12, and after about 10 races my dad said, "It's not safe. You're not doing that anymore." So I waited four years and then sold my gocart for $500. Took the money to a junkyard over in Kannapolis.

[Q] Playboy: Kannapolis, birthplace of both Dale Earnhardts.

[A] Earnhardt: Bought a 1978 Monte Carlo for $200. I spent the rest on parts and started building a race car.

[Q] Playboy: Why a Monte Carlo?

[A] Earnhardt: Price. I'm looking at 10 acres of junk cars, and that's the cheapest one there. Remember, I'm 16 and don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I say, "Hey, what can I get for $200? That one? All right, I'll make it work."

[Q] Playboy: Where did you work on it?

[A] Earnhardt: Here in Mooresville, in my dad's garage. My half brother Kerry and me found a roll cage, fixed it up and put it on there.

[Q] Playboy: You're a mechanic and a welder, too?

[A] Earnhardt: That was the hard part. We cut a hole in the floor of the car and mounted the cage to the chassis. The cage had to be wide enough to sit in and drive, but not so wide that we couldn't get the door back on. Then the seat goes in, and you have to mount it so it won't fly out if you run into something. Painted it, put a big number eight on it. That was hard work, but I learned to work on a car. My sister Kelley raced cars, too. I wound up building two cars for her, from the ground up, and one for my brother.

[Q] Playboy: How fast was that Monte Carlo?

[A] Earnhardt: Somewhere around 140 on the flat, about 90 for a lap around the little tracks we ran on.

[Q] Playboy: In 1994 you were the new kid on Nascar's Late Model Stock Car circuit, racing around little ovals from Concord, North Carolina, to Myrtle Beach and Florence, South Carolina, to Nashville, and you won only three races in 119 tries. What happened?

[A] Earnhardt: At each of those tracks there was one guy who dominated. He was the track champion, and he won every race. His car had the biggest motor. His carburetor was bigger. Maybe his tires were greased up, and maybe the track's head inspector worked for the people who sponsored the guy. I mean, the cheating was blatant.

[Q] Playboy: You must have been furious.

[A] Earnhardt: No, I loved the racing. I was having a blast.

[Q] Playboy: Once you got the right ride, you dominated the Busch Series, then last year you won in Texas as a Winston Cup rookie. How did you react to that first victory?

[A] Earnhardt: It took a second to sink in, then I realized it. I sat there in the car and said, "Holy shit!"

[Q] Playboy: You have mixed feelings about fame, don't you?

[A] Earnhardt: It's mostly cool. The Charlotte Hornets asked me to come to a playoff game, and they had a number eight jersey for me with my name on it. I talked in an interview about being a big Elvis Presley fan, and I started getting Elvis stuff in the mail. A police officer in New Hampshire sent me an Elvis autograph, just to be nice. My sponsor sends me cases and cases of free Budweiser—more than I can drink. I'm doing the Playboy Interview—this is cool shit a lot of drivers don't get, and I recognize that. A lot of circumstances had to fall into place for all this to happen. I mean, three years ago nobody knew or cared who I was. Now people drive past my house just to look at it. Some of them knock on the door, too.

[Q] Playboy: Half of North Carolina knows where you live. Your house isn't exactly bristling with security.

[A] Earnhardt: I'm putting up a gate. And there's security across the road, at the company headquarters. They have a camera on my house, and they'll talk back and forth by radio: "There's a white female coming up the driveway." Another time I was watching TV and a couple of girls walked in my door and asked me out on a date, just like that.

[Q] Playboy: Your groupies seem to travel in pairs.

[A] Earnhardt: They ain't supermodels, though. It's never the supermodel types who do that.

[Q] Playboy: Do your friends get jealous?

[A] Earnhardt: Not about that. It's more that they'll think I'm becoming an asshole. They'll say, "Let's go out with this guy." I'll say I don't know the guy, so I'm not riding with him. Because I have to be afraid. If something gets messed up, it's not his name they'll put in the paper, it's mine. So some guys may say, "He thinks he's too good for us," but it isn't that.

[Q] Playboy: Bet you never thought you'd be image conscious.

[A] Earnhardt: Me and my friends used to party all the time, and my dad would get mad and say, "Quit that!" As I get older, I start to think about how I'm perceived. (continued on page 174)Dale Earnhardt Jr.(continued from page 76) People come out of the woodwork, and they may not have the best intentions. I'm just trying to keep watch.

[Q] Playboy: You mentioned playing computer games. You're a pretty big gamer, aren't you?

[A] Earnhardt: I am. I play for fun, but one time it helped me on the track. I had never raced at Watkins Glen, but then I drove it in a computer game and it was like having a map to a maze. The game was accurate down to the shift points on the track—the places where you shift gears—within about 25 feet. So when I pulled out on the racetrack, it was like déjà vu. "Ooh, this is weird. I can do this!" I came out of turn one in second gear and shifted into third just before the next bend, exactly like the game. A fast lap on that track is a minute and 13 seconds. Without the game it would have taken me hours of practice laps to run under 1:20, but my first lap was under 1:20. Within two hours I got down to 1:16. That game cut my learning curve in half.

[Q] Playboy: Have other drivers tried that?

[A] Earnhardt: It's not common practice. Don't tell them.

[Q] Playboy: What other video games do you play? Tomb Raider?

[A] Earnhardt: No, not that crap! Fictional games don't appeal to me. I like what's real. If it's a war game, it needs to be a battle that really happened.

[Q] Playboy: Do you shop on the Web?

[A] Earnhardt: I saw an ad at Auto Trader, com and bought a 1969 Corvette. I sent a buddy to Miami to look at it, and this Vette was a badass ride. It had everything I wanted except side exhaust, and we put that on.

[Q] Playboy: Did you get a discount when the seller found out who wanted his car?

[A] Earnhardt: No, he pushed the price up. I paid about $40,000.

[Q] Playboy: What else is out there in your driveway?

[A] Earnhardt: I've got that Corvette, a new Camaro, two more Vettes on the way, and a 1971 Corvette that's being worked on. But all I really drive is my big old red pickup with the rattles and dings. Don't have to worry about that one. If something happens, I don't even fix it.

[Q] Playboy: Suppose somebody wants to soup up his car. What's one thing he can do under the hood to make the car go faster?

[A] Earnhardt: Almost every car built today has a computer, and every one of those computers has a chip in it that keeps the horsepower down. Change it and you'll run faster.

[Q] Playboy: Where do I get a new chip?

[A] Earnhardt: At the dealership. People with Corvettes, Camaros, even pickup trucks are always talking about their hop-up kits: "Hey, I just got a chip for my Vette." Pop that chip in, it's instant horsepower.

[Q] Playboy: Do you tinker with computers at home?

[A] Earnhardt: I can install modems, memory and graphic cards—anything but the motherboard. When we put a big sound system in the basement, I bought a computer and rigged it so we can mix and play songs through the computer.

[Q] Playboy: Guys all over the country figure you're partying every night in Junior's Place, probably with two or three Nascar groupies at a time.

[A] Earnhardt: That'd be cool, but I haven't been that fortunate. About all I can say along those lines is that I once had a time in my race car trailer. This was when I was running late-model cars, and we had a gooseneck trailer to haul my car around the Carolinas. Well, this girl was about to move away, and we wouldn't have many more chances, so one night when I was out there working on my car, she stopped by. I had a buddy with me. We gave him a case of beer and told him to keep watch. But not on us.

[Q] Playboy: Let's do some quick question and answer. Which drivers do you hate to see in your rearview on the last lap?

[A] Earnhardt: Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Bobby Labonte.

[Q] Playboy: How about the next generation? Ten years from now, who'll be winning the Nascar races that you don't win?

[A] Earnhardt: Matt Kenseth is going to be good. He has serious talent. Elliot Sadler, too. And the guy who has been driving my father's car this year, Kevin Harvick, is very good. He's brash; I like that.

[Q] Playboy: What's Nascar's worst track?

[A] Earnhardt: Darlington. It's old. It's eggshaped. It's full of seashells. They use crushed rock and seashells in the asphalt mix. It's so coarse you get an awesome grip for four or five laps, but then your tires wear off and you're just sliding around, trying not to hit something. Go out on that track and rub your hand on it—it'll actually cut you.

[Q] Playboy: Which is more fun to drive, a Busch Series car or a Winston Cup car?

[A] Earnhardt: The Busch car is lighter, with a little shorter wheelbase, so it handles better. It's easier to drive when it handles good, and you can still get it in and out of the turns on the days when you're wrestling it. When a Winston Cup car isn't handling, you'll slam on the brakes in a corner and it doesn't want to turn. It just wants to roll over.

[Q] Playboy: Is there any vehicle that you wouldn't drive?

[A] Earnhardt: A monster truck. They intimidate me. I know somebody who drove one of those things and wound up with a broken back.

[Q] Playboy: Last year Sports Illustrated asked Nascar insiders to name the dirtiest driver. Your father won in a landslide. "He'd wreck his own mom," one crew member said. But would he have wrecked his son?

[A] Earnhardt: No, he wouldn't. He might move me out of the way, but I'd keep running and finish second.

[Q] Playboy: People call you Dale, Dale Jr., Junior and Little E. What do you prefer?

[A] Earnhardt: Call me Junior.

[Q] Playboy: You've been doing some writing for Nascar.com. Is this your contemplative side coming out?

[A] Earnhardt: Come on. I sit at home and pull something out of my ass once a month, and if it sucks no one'll tell me it sucks.

[Q] Playboy: You wrote a column about your dad. He didn't think it sucked.

[A] Earnhardt: Well, I loved him, didn't I? Since he died, people have tried to make it sound more theatrical, but we were pretty much like any other father and son. He was hard to talk to, but that was just him. I wrote that thing and thought he should hear it first. He was sitting upstairs in his office. "I've been writing this online column for Nascar," I said, and I read it to him. I'm halfway through, and he gets out of his chair and walks over to me. I thought he was mad. But he says, "Man, I knew how you felt, but that really puts it in perspective." And since he died, that's something I think about a lot. He knew how I felt. He knew how I loved him.

[Q] Playboy: Nascar doesn't retire numbers. Should that policy change? Should your father's number three be retired?

[A] Earnhardt: No. I might want it one day, or my son might.

[Q] Playboy: Your son?

[A] Earnhardt: Yes, I want a son.

[Q] Playboy: Dale Earnhardt III?

[A] Earnhardt: I think I may call him Ralph Lee Earnhardt.

[Q] Playboy: Ralph Earnhardt was your grandfather. He was a stock car champ in the Fifties, the first Nascar star in the family.

[A] Earnhardt: Now all I have to do is find his mom.

[Q] Playboy: Suppose you do, and in four years you're 30 with a wife and a toddler. Will that change your view of your job? Will you worry more? Drivers always say they're aware of the risks, but nobody ever quits racing because the risks are too high.

[A] Earnhardt: Are you sure about that? I mean, I don't want to start talking out of my ass, but I think that's a big factor when drivers hang it up. They're probably thinking, I've got a wife, I've got kids, I've had a good career. I should quit before——

[Q] Playboy: Do you wish your father had thought that way?

[A] Earnhardt: No, because he was still winning. Most drivers retire because they're at the bottom of the barrel. They're just hanging on, making fools of themselves.

[Q] Playboy: Daytona 500—February 2020. You're 45 years old. Are you still out there racing?

[A] Earnhardt: Only if I can still win.

[Q] Playboy: So you won't be one of those guys who hangs on too long?

[A] Earnhardt: No way. Not me. Of course, all of them probably used to say that, didn't they?

My dad was busting his ass and putting food on the table. I missed him bad sometimes, but when he was around it was great. We knew he loved us.