“I’m an easy target”: When Dale Jr.’s wife Amy disclosed being exposed to criticism by ‘uninformed folks’ concerning her husband’s retirement call

When Dale Jr. made it official that he wouldn't return for the 2018 Cup Series season, uninformed reporters, who supposedly had no clue about Junior's lingering concussions that led to the decision, fired shots at his wife Amy. Nonetheless, Mrs. Earnhardt revealed she didn't let the media get the better of her as she had developed a thick skin against the industry's naysayers.

Coincidentally, Dale Jr. announced his retirement one year after tying the knot with Amy on New Year's Eve in 2016. At the time of the retirement announcement, Amy was pregnant with Isla Rose Earnhardt, instigating reporters to believe that Junior retired because of Amy.

When renowned American journalist Graham Bensinger asked Junior's wife how crazy she was when 'uninformed folks' pointed fingers at her for her husband's retirement, Amy outlined that the circumstances were such that people with scarcity of information aimed at her.

"A lot of that was not surprising. I'm an easy target for something like that. Without a lot of information, they're just gonna assume. It was ironic timing considering he was going to come to the end of his career anyway, and we were getting married, I got pregnant, just kind of all cumulative," Amy said (4:03).

Amy then outlined how she handled the criticism.

"It didn't bother me, I felt like I've developed a thick skin but it's just easy to see that that was an easy target so it didn't bother me and plus I stayed off social media when we were really going through the really bad parts of it," Dale Jr.'s wife added.

The former HMS driver retired due to the concussions he suffered from during his two-decade-long career. Even though he tried to mask his problems and continue his career, like many racers, the ill effects began overpowering his racing prowess, leading him to make the difficult decision.

Dale Jr. recalls his Daytona crash that damaged his vestibular system

A year after exiting NASCAR Cup Series with 26 wins, Junior issued an opinion through the NY Times, where he revealed that he retired because of a concussion, not fractures. In the same revelation, the NASCAR Hall of Famer recalled his horrific Daytona crash that disturbed the wiring of his vestibular system.

The vestibular system is a part located in the inner ear, essential for supplying information to the brain required for optimal human body balance. However, when a nerve gets damaged, a person can feel the objects moving even though they aren't.

This is precisely what happened with Dale Jr. in the aftermath of his 1998 Daytona 300 crash. A week after his Chevy went airborne and slammed itself back on the Daytona International Speedway's asphalt, Junior realized his vestibular system had been damaged as he suddenly felt the car rolling, which was still. The crash was so severe that the two-time Xfinity champion's helmet left a dent in the steel roll cage.

Dale Jr. also mentioned that between 2012 and 2016 he often felt 'disoriented' after an exhausting race weekend and that the doctors had already told him to exit racing.