“I couldn’t tell him to retire”: When Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s wife Amy addressed his late-career concussion concerns

Amy Earnhardt discussed the dangers her husband, Dale Earnhardt Jr., went through in the final stages of his racing career. She spoke about his struggles with concussions and rehabilitation, which made racing a very questionable choice for the family.

Dale Jr. suffered from the cruel part of racing in NASCAR with crashes and head injuries that made him susceptible to concussions in the later stages of his career. Racing with Hendrick Motorsports in 2016, he was diagnosed with symptoms revealing major concussions, which forced him to get off of the steering wheel for the remainder of the season. While his treatment went on with rehabilitation and therapy, getting back into racing seemed to be a difficult choice.

However, Amy was adamant to get him back into the car. Speaking to USA TODAY Sports in 2017, she revealed how the two battled through it together.

"It was a scary thing," Amy said. "He was terrified. He was terrified more that he would not be able to function as a human being again and enjoy life. Racing wasn’t even a thought."

"I had to motivate him to get up every day and do his physical therapy. He was extremely frustrated with the symptoms he was having, mainly because he is Dale Jr. and he wants everything to happen at the moment."

After a long treatment, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was deemed fit to race again. While he remained excited, his family was still aware about the symptoms he could face. Despite the agitation, Amy attempted to adjust as she "couldn't tell him to retire."

"When he started feeling better and racing became an option again, he got excited, and that helped propel him," she added. "For the rest of us, I think it made us a little nervous about what if this (concussion) happens again."

"Of course, that’s not something you can say to him. It’s more or less his decision. We had a lot of long talks as we were going through treatment. The conversation he really needed to have was with himself. I couldn’t tell him to retire. I tried to make him comfortable with what he wanted to do."

He returned to racing for one final season in 2017, piloting the #88 Chevy. While the symptoms showed up in mid-2016, Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes it was a crash during the 2012 season that might have triggered the concussions.

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Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes 2012 Kansas crash injured his head

Dale Jr. had a major crash during testing in 2012 at the Kansas Speedway, which he feels gave him a head injury and made him more susceptible to concussions.

He claimed that while going at around 190 mph (305 km/h), he hit the fence on the track and his head hit the headrest, which was rather stiff.

"I remember thinking as I was heading toward that fence, ‘This is going to be an insane, insane impact,'" Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. "And I hit the wall at 190 mph and my head is right against that headrest and it’s as stiff as a roll bar, and so my head didn’t go anywhere and everything inside of it went into high speed movement, and my brain just compacts against the inside of my skull at an incredible force."

In 2016, Dale Earnhardt Jr. announced that his brain would be donated to science after his death to study the impact of the concussions he went through during his career.

He is estimated to have suffered from around 20 to 25 concussions during his 17-year-long Cup Series career.