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I always thought, if I wasn't racing, one of my dream jobs would be as a scout, going town to town and trying to find bands in all these little dive bars. That would be so much fun, discovering music that way as opposed to from your phone.
Everything we do needs to be geared toward making the sport [auto racing] more accessible to the fans - the rules of the sport, how the race plays itself out, how people qualify into the races - everything needs to be as easy to understand as possible.
I wish Michael Schumacher would come try NASCAR. That'd be cool. With everything he's done and how professional he's remained through it all, I think he's an awesome role model as far as work ethic and tenacity. He just seems like he knows how to get it done.
I want to continue to be a part of the sport, and not just as an owner in the Nascar Xfinity Series. I want to be a valuable asset to the growth of the sport and continue to help raise the bar and raise the awareness of the sport and promote the sport as much as I can.
I didn't think I was ever going to be a Cup driver. When I was a kid, before I started racing in the Xfinity Series, I thought that I was never going to get a chance, and then, if I did, I wasn't going to run well enough to maintain that opportunity and keep progressing.
I love running good because it meets expectations, whether it's the fans' or my own. And I know that they come to be entertained: they pull for a particular driver to be entertained by that driver's success and that driver's personality, and they relate to that individual.
When someone tells me they've never been to a race, I tell them that the first one they should go to is Bristol, Tennesee. The shape of the track, the energy, and excitement under the lights is similar to what you might get at a stick-and-ball game in college football or the NFL.
I always make things worse than they are or create problems that aren't there. And going and doing some simple task becomes a problem. I start imagining problems that aren't there. What people are going to think, who's going to judge me and am I going to be good enough? Am I worthy?
I am proud of the Earnhardt name, but it don't stand alone. You know, it's part of the sport, with all those other historic people that have been a part of it, and you don't want people to forget the part you had in it and what you did and the contributions you made and the sacrifices you made.
When you have a concussion, one of the symptoms that is common is anxiety. Imagine having the normal amount of anxieties that everybody shares - about life and meeting people in social spaces, whatever. Imagine that being multiplied by 10, 20. And so your worry over people's perceptions of you multiplies.
I don't think any of us knew the dangers of repeated concussions or the fact that even when you got a concussion, the idea to go get treatment for it never entered our minds. We just didn't have - we weren't educated enough. We were really ignorant to it. I would get concussions in my early 20s racing, and it was a bit of a badge of honor.
I don't mind at all being approached when I'm 10 or more feet away from the car. If I'm anywhere away from the car, I'm fine. That's completely expected. But when I'm next to the car or within 10 feet of it, I'm thinking about that or working in that direction. And that's just something I'd rather be able to work on than be interrupted, really, by anybody.
I mean, I've always felt like a lot of people's misconceptions of me have to do with how I grew up. I grew up poor, and I grew up rich. I think some people who have never met me have a misconception that when I was living with my father when he was successful, that I was somehow adversely affected by his success or the money he had and was making at the time.