Dale Earnhardt once “wanted to replace” his son Jr. with his best friend on track

Legendary NASCAR Cup Series driver Dale Earnhardt and his son Earnhardt Jr. have a fairytale story of a father-son duo doing what they love together. Seen racing alongside as well as against each other on several occasions, the Earnhardts are a name as synonymous with NASCAR as V8 engines are to stock cars.

Looking back at an instance of how racing can be a cutthroat business even for a father-son duo, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s podcast, the Dale Jr. Download, recently treated fans to one such story.

Looking back at the 1998 Xfinity Series season (known as the Busch Series back then), Earnhardt Jr. and his long-time friend and former driver Matt Kenseth set out to converse on the days gone by.

The 1998 Busch Series season saw Earnhardt Jr. get off to a slow start, whereas Kenseth's win at Rockingham cemented him as one of the standout drivers.

Driving for his father's team at the time, Dale Earnhardt Jr. eventually went on to clinch the championship. However, the happy ending did not come with its own set of near-misses, as Matt Kenseth elaborated.

Speaking about his struggles with finding sponsorships for the 1998 season, Kenseth elaborated on the possible offers he had from other teams during the season.

One of these offers was from none other than Dale Earnhardt's own team. Curious to know who the offers were from, Jr. pushed Kenseth to reveal the same.

He said:

"We didn’t have a sponsor, we didn’t know if we were gonna keep racing. A couple other people were calling on me to race, I’m like ‘No!’ I told these guys that I was doing it, we were gonna do it. It was actually your Dad!"

He added:

"He wanted to replace you with somebody a little more experienced, and I was like ‘I can’t do that to Dale Jr’. I know everyone didn’t tell you that. Sorry to break it to you.”

Both drivers burst into laughter as Dale Earnhardt, back in the day, tried to polish his son into a hard-wearing driver by none other than putting him through the school of hard knocks!

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Dale Earnhardt's grandson, in consideration of driving for Dale Jr.'s NASCAR Xfinity Series team

Earnhardt Sr.'s grandson, Jeffrey Earnhardt, has recently been announced by Dale Jr. as one of the possible future drivers for JR Motorsports in the Xfinity Series.

Revealing the news on one of his podcast's live sessions, Jr. said:

"As far as who fills the seat next year in the #8 car at JR Motorsports, there's a long list of drivers. Jeffrey (Earnhardt) is one of the drivers we're talking to."

It remains to be seen if things come full circle for the Earnhardt family, with Dale Earnhardt's grandson driving for his uncle in the Xfinity Series.