Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Playboy Interview

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-horsepower, 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."