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Joe Rogan Experience #1196 - Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a semi-retired American professional stock car racing driver, team owner, and is currently an analyst for NASCAR on NBC. His new book "Racing to the Finish: My Story" is available now.

Joe RoganhostDale Earnhardt Jr.guestGuest 2 (unidentified, brief participant)guest
Nov 7, 20181h 53mWatch on YouTube ↗

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  1. 0:00 – 15:00

    Four, three, two... Hello,…

    1. JR

      Four, three, two... Hello, Dale.

    2. DJ

      Hey, how you doing?

    3. JR

      (laughs) Thanks for doing this, man. I appreciate it.

    4. DJ

      Yeah, I'm glad to be here.

    5. JR

      Nice to meet you, man. And nice to find out that not only you're a race car driver, you're also a bow hunter.

    6. DJ

      Yeah, yeah. I do like to... I saw your-

    7. JR

      (laughs)

    8. DJ

      ... your archery, uh, equipment and all that stuff. But me and a buddy of mine own some land, and... and I try to get out there and at least go twice a year. I just love being in the stands, sitting in the woods. Just thinking about what's going on and just try-

    9. JR

      Yeah. It's brain cleansing, right?

    10. DJ

      It is.

    11. JR

      It really is.

    12. DJ

      Everything before the shot really is what it's all about.

    13. JR

      Yeah. Yeah, that's a lot of it, right?

    14. DJ

      Hanging out with your... being with your friends and family, you know.

    15. JR

      You need one of those techno hunts in your life, don't you?

    16. DJ

      I do.

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. DJ

      The techno hunt was pretty impressive.

    19. JR

      Yeah, that thing is-

    20. DJ

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      Uh, all my friends who come over here just go, "Whoa."

    22. DJ

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      That's a, that's a life-changer.

    24. DJ

      Yeah, absolutely.

    25. JR

      But it's also a giant time waster.

    26. DJ

      I know. I don't know. Like, I've got a golf sim at the house, so I got to figure out where I can put that.

    27. JR

      Ooh. Golf's the one I've always avoided.

    28. DJ

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      I've always avoided golf because I just saw it suck away people's time.

    30. DJ

      Yeah. I don't go... That's the thing. Like, I don't have the time and the patience to really block that whole day off to go play-

  2. 15:00 – 30:00

    (laughs) …

    1. DJ

      cussing at least, but he started laughing. And I said, "Man, what's so funny?" And he goes ... Uh, I was 18 when this happened. He goes, "When I was 18 years old, I flipped my car." He's like, "I can't get mad."

    2. GP

      (laughs)

    3. DJ

      He's like, "It's just, I'm just glad you're not hurt." I'm like, "Well, that's nice." So we drove back. I took a couple pictures of it, and, uh, got me, got insurance for it. Got like 11, 12 grand for the insurance to be able to buy another truck.

    4. GP

      (laughs) So it all worked out.

    5. DJ

      Yeah.

    6. GP

      So that was the first time you ever flipped something, or did you flip the race car first?

    7. DJ

      That was the first time.

    8. GP

      That was the first time.

    9. DJ

      No, the race car was next.

    10. GP

      So the race car is like, "Oh, I've been here before."

    11. DJ

      Yes. Yeah.

    12. GP

      Wow.

    13. DJ

      And it's nothing. And the, and the race car, it's, it's not as bad as a ... A passenger car, you only got that strap, you know?

    14. GP

      Right.

    15. DJ

      You just, you're moving around and banging around in there. And in the race car, you're in there pretty tight.

    16. GP

      Yeah. W- do you feel weird when you're in a passenger car too, just f- the lack of support and-

    17. DJ

      The lack of support and safety?

    18. GP

      Yeah.

    19. DJ

      Y- you know, I, I do, because compared to way- the way our cup cars are now, or the race cars are now, man, we're cocooned in there. The seat and everything, the headrest, the st- you got a six, seven point harness. I mean, in a street car you really just got the strap. I mean, it's ... Um, I certainly, uh, you know, am more c- I'm much more cautious as I get older on the highway. And, and people are like, "Hey man, how do you do it? How do you drive on r- how do you drive a race car and then go 45, 55 on the road?" And it's real easy actually, you know. You just kinda chill. Uh, when I was-

    20. GP

      Does it get all your fast driving out of the way?

    21. DJ

      Yeah. When I was younger I w- I was getting speeding tickets all the time, but when I, as I got older, I just didn't care to be in a hurry anymore.

    22. GP

      Yeah, I would figure the way you drive for a living, you would just get it out of your system.

    23. DJ

      Yeah, yeah.

    24. GP

      You probably just-

    25. DJ

      I get plenty of, I had plenty and, plenty of high speed r- action and hijinks on the racetrack. I don't ... I calm down on the road.

    26. GP

      What kind of car do you drive in real life?

    27. DJ

      Well, it's funny. I, um, uh, I just bought a brand new Silverado. I hadn't bought a truck in a long time. I had, I still have my old Silverado I bought. It's about a '04, '06. But they, this new one, uh, I like a lot. I really-

    28. GP

      The new ones are badass.

    29. DJ

      I didn't like the old ones that much. They just look kinda basic. The, the, yeah.

    30. GP

      The new ones are really sweet looking.

  3. 30:00 – 45:00

    Yeah. …

    1. JR

      the horsepower wars with just modern consumer cars? 'Cause I look at some of these cars that they're putting out that are amazing-

    2. DJ

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      ... like the new Corvette ZR1-

    4. DJ

      Right.

    5. JR

      It's like 700-plus horsepower right from the factory.

    6. DJ

      Mm-hmm.

    7. JR

      The Dodge Demon's like 800 horsepower. Like, they are putting out these insane race cars-

    8. DJ

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      ... right from the factory that any dummy like me, I could just go to a s... If I have the cash, I could go to a Corvette dealership and pick one up and all of a sudden, I'm on the highway.

    10. DJ

      (laughs) Yeah. Yeah. I don't, I don't have a problem with it now until it becomes a common occurrence where people don't know how to control it, you know-

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. DJ

      ... or ha- uh, ha- uh know how to manage what they're doing behind the wheel or something like that. But until, until that's like a common issue, I don't know that it'll need regulation.

    13. JR

      Yeah.

    14. DJ

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      Yeah, I don't necessarily think a re-

    16. DJ

      I wouldn't be surprised though that, that c- that one day it may be, you know, regulated because everything gets, you know, governed at some point.

    17. JR

      Right. Yeah.

    18. DJ

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      Maybe too much, right?

    20. DJ

      Right.

    21. JR

      Maybe we should just appreciate-

    22. DJ

      (laughs)

    23. JR

      ... the fact that you can do that. (laughs)

    24. DJ

      I know, I mean, I wanna be able to build whatever I wanna build.

    25. JR

      Right.

    26. DJ

      You know?

    27. JR

      Right. Yeah.

    28. DJ

      And if, and if I want that, I... Then production oughta be able to produce whatever they want.

    29. JR

      I agree. But I feel like, I feel it the same way I feel about guns. Like I'm very pro-Second Amendment. I feel like, uh, I am a responsible gun owner. I n- have a lot of friends that are responsible gun owners. I've used guns for hunting. I think you should have a gun for protection. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But I don't think it would be a bad idea to have some sort of course that you have to go through so you understand all the aspects of safety and v- precautions that you should take-

    30. DJ

      Yeah.

  4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

    Hmm. …

    1. DJ

      "I can't even ..." You know, "I can't keep crashing like this. Just s- putting these concussions so close together is a bad deal. It's dangerous." And my ... I couldn't bite my tongue. Like, my attitude and my emotions and shit was out of whack. Like, I couldn't control my anger-

    2. GP

      Hmm.

    3. DJ

      ... and I was like, anybody be s- anybody say something I didn't like, I'm like, well, you know, I wanted to tell them to fuck off, you know?

    4. GP

      Right.

    5. DJ

      And, I, that was just not like me. I couldn't s- I couldn't, like, k- keep myself calm. And, uh, everything that I heard, like, made me angry. (laughs)

    6. GP

      Yeah.

    7. DJ

      It was the craziest thing. Even people just talking about stuff would just get under my skin. I'm like, grr. Uh, real impatient. Um, and there was some new symptoms but, uh, finally, uh, I went to the doctor and, and, uh, got to ... I went to this neurosurgeon in Charlotte, Dr Petty. He's like, "I want you to meet this guy in Pittsburgh. His name's Mickey Collins. He works with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Penguins." And, uh, I'm like, "All right." I go up there and I'm thinking I'm gonna meet this guy that works du- works with the Penguins and the Steelers and he sees, you know, players. But he's a, he's a doctor that sees anybody and everybody. Like, there's kids in there, you know, that got hurt playing on the playground. There's workers, uh, con ... You know, uh, carpenters, housewives. Everybody's in that damn waiting room to see this man. He sees about 25 people a day and, um, he's an expert on head injuries and he's got, you know ... He's just, he's on the f- cutting edge of whatever the hell the new shit is, he knows it. And his, you know, his team and his people are investigating it. And so they're ... Uh, he fixed me. So I go there and I'm like, "This is what happened. This is how it happened. I crashed, I, I hit it, I didn't tell anybody about it. I was sick for over four weeks, I got better. I crashed in this race and I feel sick again." And he was like, "Well, these are two different injuries of two, two different parts of your brain. The first injury, you, you bruised this, uh, f- right front edge of your brain, uh, when you hit the wall." He said, "This, this second crash, uh, you twisted the s- base of your brain and injured some things in the back of your brain, and that's why you're having the emotional ..." And different things like that. So, uh, but we ... He went deeper into it than that. He was like, you know ... We did all these, uh, tests and, um, visual tests, and all kinds of stuff for, for ... And I'd go back to s- I mean, we did this thing. We d- I went through the gamut for a whole day of doing tests, and then I went back every, uh, week, uh, before I ... You know, and, and in two weeks I was back racing again. I was clear. And, uh, so he, he took an injury that I hid and took four weeks to heal, and healed it in two weeks.

    8. GP

      What did he do to heal it?

    9. DJ

      Um, he gave me ... I never took any medication on this particular, uh, issue. He gave me, uh, home exercises and eye exercises. There was a ... I had problems with focusing and mi- making my eyes work, tra- tracking in object, like a bird flying across the sky or anything like that. I couldn't, my eyes couldn't stay on it. If I looked at you, uh, my eyes would bounce off of you. Um, and they just wouldn't stay, you know. If you said, "Hey man, I'm gonna take a picture," and you held up a camera and I tried to look at the lens and smile, my eyes would wanna jump off of that object. They would want ... They didn't want to, to look at what I wanted them to look at and track anything going anywhere. And s-

    10. GP

      What was the cause of that?

    11. DJ

      Um, the, the brain has-... the ocular stuff, uh, I mean, you can have injury to that part of your brain or you can have an injury to the vestibular part of your brain that, that af- that may af- l- like if you have bad balance, then that ... Your eyes and your balance work together. And so if you have, uh, vestibular issues, that can create ocular issues. And, um, that can create, um, that, that can affect your, uh, anxiety and depression and things like ... So all these ... You can have an injury to one part of your brain that affects four other areas. And so ... And we talk about that in the book. Mickey comes into the book and I'm, I'll talk a- you know, I'll say, "This is what I was feeling, this is what I did." And Mickey will come in behind me and say, "This is the medical science behind that, and this is how we treated it and why." But I would have an injury to one singular area of my brain, but I would have four different symptoms affecting four different parts of my brain, four different senses. And, um, you know, he would have to hone in on the one that was broken and then f- know to fix it. And when he started fixing it, all the other ones would start communicating together. The brain would start working again. Balance and visual and all those things would start to work again, and anxiety and all those things would, you know, begin to tu- come back in tune.

    12. JR

      Now when you said he fixed it, like what is he doing?

    13. DJ

      Uh, he ... Well, so he gave me physical exercises to do. I had some balance issues. Basically if I was ... if I turned my head, uh, or looked up and down, I would get dizzy and sick. Like my stomach would turn if I turned my head left or right, if I looked up and down just sitting there. Like the best thing for me was to sit on the couch and not move.

    14. JR

      (laughs)

    15. DJ

      And so like literally not move. And I felt fine then, but if I had moved an inch, man, it was like m- it'd make your stomach nauseous. And so I did a lot of motio- I did a lot of exercises that created a ton of motion with my head. Um, lifting heavy balls up and, uh, p- passing them over my shoulder this way or that way, taking a ball and turning around and hitting it this way, taking the ball, turning around and hitting it that ... Just doing that for, for hours and hours and hours. And so I would train ... Basically, uh, I was training myself to s- to balance again. You know, training my mi- training my l- my body to balance itself again. And if ... And my ... If I couldn't see a horizon or a flat surface, uh, I couldn't tell which way was up.

    16. JR

      Oh.

    17. DJ

      And yeah, it was so bad. And, um, the visual stuff, there was these, uh ... I had a string with these balls on it, and I would hold the string on my nose and hold it out here, and I had to look at all those balls. And it would ... My eyes are focusing ... Just all it's doing is really just making my eyes change focus, uh, from one to the next to the next and back, on to the next, next and back. And there was this eye chart on the wall, and it had all these letters and all these numbers on it, and I had to, uh, I had to look at that eye chart and turn my head back and forth this way, but look at that eye chart and count, and count, uh, do from A to Z but backwards.

    18. JR

      Oh.

    19. DJ

      Do the alphabet. So I'd have to look for the letters. "Where's Z?" You know, and go backwards. Or one, one to 20. You know?

    20. JR

      All while you're shaking your head.

    21. DJ

      One, two, three. Yeah, and standing up, and walking backwards and walking forward.

    22. JR

      And what is this doing to your mind? Like how d- how does this fix your mind? Like what is the-

    23. DJ

      (sighs) I-

    24. JR

      ... what's the process?

    25. DJ

      You know, I don't know what the real ... I don't know what ... It's the ... I've had ... The problem with me was my vestibular system, so my ability to understand balance and understand horizons and ... So I was putting my mind in a perplex, uh, in a complex environment, or making my mind do complex things that you don't do every day.

    26. JR

      And it's just firing up these parts of your brain-

    27. DJ

      And it's, yeah.

    28. JR

      ... and exercises them?

    29. DJ

      It's kind of like stretching this muscle. You know?

    30. JR

      Oh.

  5. 1:00:00 – 1:09:47

    Two weeks, you felt…

    1. DJ

      we did mai- ... Basic, basic, uh, physical therapy and eye therapy, eye, eye tests and different eye exercises. Um, and in two weeks, I was back in the race car. I raced for ... That was in 2012. I raced all the way to 2016.

    2. JR

      Two weeks, you felt 100%?

    3. DJ

      Yeah.

    4. JR

      That's amazing.

    5. DJ

      Yeah.

    6. JR

      So with all these crazy exercise you're doing, when did you feel like it had settled in? Like, "Wow, this is really working"?

    7. DJ

      Uh, pretty ... I mean, in two ... If it was a two-week period, it wasn't ... You know, it was a day or two, I th- ... I guess, you know? I mean, I can't even-

    8. JR

      Wow.

    9. DJ

      ... remember. I can't even remember that far back.

    10. JR

      A day or two?

    11. DJ

      Yeah. I mean, I imagine it was feeling pretty good after a couple days. I'd have to ... I don't know. I mean, I don't know if it-

    12. JR

      Mm.

    13. DJ

      ... affected me right away, or ... But I know I was ... By time ... We have ... We ... I take an impact test, which is basically kinda measures memory and things like that, all kinds of different stuff. And my, um, measurements had come back to my norm, you know, my basic, uh, uh ... Your ... You know, they kinda make you take the impact test beforehand so that gets your, your blueprint of how you are. And, uh, and then whenever you get injured, you take it again and they'll line that up against-... against that and say, "Okay, yeah, you're deficient here. This is a problem." Maybe it's not diagnosing a concussion but it wants... It, it's asking us to look in this area.

    14. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    15. DJ

      And, um, so you have a baseline and then you have whatever post, you know, your injury or post-crash, uh, baseline is. Um, so I was matching all my normals on that impact test and that was kinda the trigger for them to go, "Man, if you feel good, you look good. Here. All the things are saying that you're back." You know? And, uh, I wanted to go race so I felt pretty good.

    16. JR

      Is it a, a strange feeling knowing that you can't see what the damage is? Like a, a brain injury's a strange one, right? Because it's affecting everything in your body but you don't... You don't see it. Like if you have a, a broken arm-

    17. DJ

      Mm-hmm.

    18. JR

      ... and you're looking at it, you know it's in a cast, it gets fixed, you know, you, you're, you're aware of it. You're doing rehab on it, you're looking at it while you're doing it.

    19. DJ

      Yeah.

    20. JR

      There's something about the brain where it's all like... You can kinda mind fuck yourself-

    21. DJ

      (laughs)

    22. JR

      ... and say, "Eh, I think, I think I'm okay."

    23. DJ

      Yeah.

    24. JR

      You know?

    25. DJ

      That's why... So in the b- in the book I talk about these notes I started taking. After that crash in 2012, when I would wreck after that, I would get sick and I wasn't telling anybody. And so I started writing these notes in my d- in a journal in my phone and from 2013 all the way to 2016 I had this long journal of crashes and how I felt. And I would, uh, crash on Sunday and I'd write in the journal on Sunday night, Monday morning, Monday at lunch, Monday at night. You know, every... Three times a day every day until whenever I felt good, which is usually the Wednesday or Thursday of th- that week. And I was writing these notes because I couldn't tell if I was getting better. The n- the, the brain injury or any type of head injury... I mean, if you said, "How's it feel?" Monday and then you asked me again Tuesday, I'd be like, "I really don't fucking know, man. It just... It's there."

    26. JR

      Right.

    27. DJ

      "I don't know if it's better. It just feels bad." And so I would try to write as detailed as I could on a day, on a Monday and then try to write as detailed as I could on Tuesday and re-read Monday and see, "Hmm, is it better? I can see in the comments or, you know, I can't really remember exactly what I was feeling Monday but in the comments it seems better," and I would write these notes, right? And so I kept doing this and I thought I was treating myself. And eventually it caught up with me. Like I had about a dozen concussions in a period of about two and a half years-

    28. JR

      Wow.

    29. DJ

      ... and I got to where I couldn't walk and I was... Called my owner and I was like, "Man, I need to talk to you. I can't race this weekend. I can't hardly walk and, uh, my balance is so bad that I can't get up off the couch without holding onto something and walking across the room without grabbing stuff as I go." And-

    30. JR

      Jesus.

Episode duration: 1:53:19

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