Dale Earnhardt Jr. discloses why he was ‘mad and frustrated’ in the NBC booth

Recently, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had Rick Allen, former play-by-play announcer at NBC, come over to his Dale Jr. Download podcast. Notably, Dale Jr. and Rick Allen used to be colleagues at NBC Sports.

At one point during the episode, Dale Jr. recalled his initial days as a color commentator for NBC. He joined the broadcast booth in the year 2018, following his retirement from full-time racing in the NASCAR Cup Series. For the first few weeks, Dale Jr. was treated like an intern, or as he said, was handled with “kid gloves”.

“It was so much fun,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. recalled. “The first couple of weeks, y'all handled me with kid gloves. You were like, yep, you get away with this, you get away with that. But you've got to figure it out.”

However, things changed when NASCAR arrived at Pocono Raceway to host a point-paying race. Dale Jr. exclaimed,

“I was standing there, and I was like, I ain't said four words! I hadn't said 10 words, maybe in the whole stage. I was so mad and frustrated.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. left NBC after the 2023 season. However, he continued racing in the Xfinity Series with JR Motorsports, which he owns alongside his sister, Kelley Earnhardt Miller, and Hendrick Motorsports owner, Rick Hendrick.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. won’t run any NASCAR-sanctioned races this year as he will be a part of TNT Sports and Amazon Prime’s broadcast teams beginning in 2025. The NASCAR veteran will be joined by Adam Alexander as the play-by-play announcer for both networks, while Daytona 500-winning crew chief Steve Letarte will serve as an analyst.

Back when Dale Earnhardt Jr. interviewed his legendary father at Talladega Superspeedway

With this coming weekend’s race at Talladega inching closer, NASCAR Classics on X remembered Dale Earnhardt Sr., a legendary NASCAR driver and Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s father, winning the DieHard 500 at the 2.66-mile racetrack back in 1990.

In an interesting turn of events, his son, who was just 16 at the time, conducted "The Intimidator’s" post-race interview. As such, there was one particular question that made Dale Sr. and the onlookers break into a fit of laughter.

“Are you going to give me some money when you get home?” asked young Dale.

“I doubt it. You’ve spent enough down here this week,” came the blatant reply from dad.

Following in his father’s footsteps, Dale Jr. grew up to be one of the finest drivers in NASCAR. During the course of his career, the Mooresville native won six times at Talladega, trailing his father for second all-time.

That being said, NASCAR is all set to visit the tri-oval speedway in Lincoln, Alabama, on Sunday, April 27, to host its 10th race of the 2025 season. Named Jack Link’s 500, the 188-lap feature will be televised on FOX, 3 pm ET onwards. Fans can also listen to radio updates on MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.