A Racing Mind

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns at Daytona after letting his brain heal from multiple concussions—and after undergoing a different sort of rehabilitation for his psyche.

- Tommy Tomlinson

Darlington Raceway on a Wednesday in December is vast and cold and empty. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s crew works alone in the garage, making last-minute tweaks to his race car. The car is stripped of paint and decals, down to bare primer—gunmetal gray. There are no fans, just a NASCAR official and a Charlotte neurosurgeon. Today is not about money or trophies. It’s about whether Dale Jr.’s brain has healed enough to do what his heart needs so bad. • A helicopter comes in low over the rim of the track and lands with a kiss in the infield.

Dale Jr. climbs out. His soon-to-be-wife, Amy Reimann, was supposed to be with him, but there was a mix-up over the time, and he couldn’t wait on her— the chopper needed to leave the house in North Carolina while their four buffalo were across the pasture. The buffalo freak when the helicopter gets close. Dale Jr. leads a big life. There are occasional buffalo problems.

He doesn’t like going anywhere without Amy. “I’m his Binky,” she says. She calms him when he worries, and he worries all the time. Mostly he worries about letting down all the people who care about him. Time and again his family has crashed and broken, through death and divorce and detachment, and he has spent his life welding the scraps together. He worries that it will fall apart again if he’s not a good enough driver and a good enough man.

“I always make things worse than they are, or create problems that aren’t there,” he says. “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?”