Passionate Dale Earnhardt Jr. dismayed over Charlottesville, Barcelona tragedies

BRISTOL, Tenn. — Responding again to last weekend’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., and the conflicts that erupted there, Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Thursday that Americans should work together, not “tear each other apart.”

On Monday, following the weekend violence in Charlottesville, Earnhardt posted a tweet in which he said that “Hatred, bigotry, & racism should have no place in this great country. Spread love.”

Earnhardt is a frequent social-media commentator after years of aggressively avoiding that form of media. He was one of several athletes who used social media to comment on the Charlottesville situation.

“It’s sad and frustrating to see what happened, and you feel sort of somewhat responsible to speak on it,” Earnhardt said during a press conference at Bristol Motor Speedway. “I think that it’s great that a lot of athletes did speak on it. It encourages people like myself to speak up.

“I think that it’s been a very difficult period of time over the last couple of years for our country, and, obviously there is some stuff that happened (Thursday) in Barcelona. It just makes you wonder what in the hell is going on in this world, you know?

“It’s really frustrating because we ought to be better than that. We ought to be smarter than that, than to be trying to tear each other apart. We ought to be working together, but it just seems like that is getting harder and harder to do and there is less and less of that.”

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In past years, Earnhardt has criticized displays of Confederate flags. In a 2002 book, he wrote that “the rebel flag represents closed-minded, racist views that have no place in today’s society.”

In his farewell season, Earnhardt is scheduled to race for the final time at Bristol in Saturday night’s Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race. Ranked 22nd in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series standings, he needs a win to make the 16-driver playoff field. He has run well over the years at BMS (eight top-fives and 16 top-10s in 34 races), but his only win here occurred in 2004.

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His father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., was very successful at Bristol and was beloved by the fan base here because of his aggressive driving style. Reminders of him can be seen all around the facility, and Junior said he notices.

“Especially when you see something new, I think I get more and more appreciation for those type of things as I get older,” he said. “You start to realize the value in a lot of things that aren’t material anymore.

“This is certainly a season of reflection. As you get closer and closer to Homestead and the last race, it certainly gets a little more emotional and you are a little more sensitive to those things, I suppose. As you get closer to the end of the season, you are a little more sensitive to a lot of things that bring back memories.

“I’ve seen a lot of pictures of me and Dad, tons and tons. When you see something that you have never seen before, I think, for whatever reason, you have to take a second look and really try to remember when that was and think about what memories that might bring up.”

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