"Awful race car" - $300M-worth Dale Earnhardt Jr. discusses the worst winning car he ever drove

Former NASCAR driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently discussed the best and worst cars he drove during his long career. He retired from full-time racing after the 2017 season.

In a recent episode of the "Dale Jr. Download - Ask Jr.," the $300 million worth (as per Celebrity Net Worth) Earnhardt Jr. talked about the worst car he drove that still managed to win a race. When a listener asked him about this, he didn’t hesitate to mention the CoT.

"The car drove terrible. It's an awful race car. I mean, I'm not a hater of the CoT, yeah, but I'm also, um, being honest that it drove awful... That was just a miserable start. We had these cars before the CoT that were fun as hell to drive... Then we went to this CoT that looked like a shoebox and drove, drove awful, just awful. It just drove terrible, and nobody could figure out how to make it drive great, even the people that won races," Earnhardt Jr. said (09:57)

The CoT was brought into NASCAR to make racing safer after crashes like the one that killed Dale Earnhardt Sr. in 2001. While Earnhardt Jr. may not have liked how it looked or handled, it made racing safer, cheaper and more competitive. The CoT was retired after 2012.

Earnhardt Jr. also remembered when Kyle Busch won at Bristol but complained about the car.

"The guy that won the race... Instead of jumping for joy he's like, ‘Oh geez, that was miserable,’” he added (10:55).

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. reflects on the best car that never won

In the same video, Dale Earnhardt Jr. also talked about the best car he drove, which never won. He mentioned his No. 8 car during a 2004 race at Martinsville.

Earnhardt Jr. said that after he crashed on the first lap of the Martinsville race, he feared it would be a bad day with his damaged car. However, he explained how losing the right front fender helped keep the tire cool, which let him drive faster after the first laps. Earnhardt Jr. ended up finishing in the top five.

"I've got no fender on the right front; I can't touch this car; it's going to bend my toe and ruin my day. So, I drived up on the curb and spun out, go to the back, drove all the way back to the front, and finished fourth or fifth... It was a good car," he said (8:00).

Dale Earnhardt Jr. also mentioned racing without stages, where drivers had to manage their tires for long runs of 100 to 180 laps. He added that he liked the challenge of racing at different speeds throughout the event.