"I met an incredible woman" - When Dale Earnhardt Jr. opened up on his wife Amy and the trajectory of his life

Ahead of his retirement in 2017, Dale Earnhardt Jr. opened up on his personal life in a candid interview. The Hendrick Motorsports driver, who announced the end of his career as a full-timer at the start of the 2017 season, was then recently married to his longtime girlfriend Amy.

Junior and Amy got married in 2016. And in the years that followed, they became parents to two girls, Isla in 2018, and Nicole in 2020.

However, in October 2017, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said he had never thought his life would turn out to be how it was at the time. He said (via USAToday),

"I didn’t know whether I would ever fall in love and get married, and I waited a long time to figure that out and how to do that and how to treat somebody the way they needed to be treated and all those things. I just feel lucky to have figured some of these things out early enough in life to enjoy them."

Earnhardt added that he'd been able to make "a lot of money" and afford a lifestyle he never dreamed of and added,

"I’ve been able to provide for my family. I met an incredible woman that I’m married to, and I just feel blessed. I don’t know how else to explain it."

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When Amy Earnhardt opened up on her conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. before they got married

During an interview with Graham Bensinger in 2018, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s wife Amy opened up on the NASCAR star's hesitancy in getting married. Amy shared that Junior was insistent on not getting married because "he didn't see a point" in that.

However, she added, Earnhardt wanted to have kids. And so she told him that if he wouldn't get married to her, which she understood, she wasn't going to have kids with him. Amy Earnhardt said,

"I'm just not doing that, not willing to do that.”

This, she said, made the then-HMS driver realize how important family was, and that turned out to be "the starting element" of it. Amy mentioned that Dale Jr. wanted to do all of it "right" because of what he saw his parents go through. She added that Dale Earnhardt Jr. realized that if he were to continue on the path he was on, from a mental standpoint, he wouldn't turn out to be much different from his parents.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Amy Reimann got engaged in 2015 after dating for nearly 6 years. The couple got married on New Year's Eve of 2017, a few months after which the sport's most popular driver announced his retirement as a full-timer.

Following that, both Dale Jr. and his wife remain a big part of NASCAR to this day.