After recovering from a concussion that sidelined him for seven months and the last 18 races of 2016, Dale Earnhardt Jr. opened up about his road back to the track in a revealing piece by ESPN The Magazine.
Dale Jr., NASCAR's most popular driver 14 years running, said that prior to his hiatus from racing, he used to worry about letting people down: He was paranoid about not being a good-enough driver to live up to the insane hype that has ridden his bumper since his racing debut.
MORE: Clash at Daytona 2017: Schedule, time, TV info, driver lineup and more
"I always make things worse than they are, or create problems that aren't there," he told ESPN. "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?"
With a life consumed of racing, Earnhardt said he never learned how to be a man. He never learned how to treat a woman, including his now-wife, Amy Reimann.
"When me and Amy first met, I was super selfish," Earnhardt said. "'We're doing whatever I want to do. You want to do what I want to do, right? Yeah, we're doing it.'"
The story detailed Earnhardt life away from the track. He stayed up late playing video games. He ordered take out constantly. This wasn't just Earnhardt in his early 20s, this was Dale Jr. in his late 30s.
MORE: NASCAR reveals new points system, segmented race format
"I don't know what the turning point was," Reimann said of Earnhardt.
Earnhardt knows, though: It was their couples therapist, Jane, who helped him realized how big of a "jerk" he was — to Amy, to his crew, to all of the relationships he pushed away.
"I ran that course for so long," Earnhardt said. "Too long. I had had enough. But I didn't know how to be a good person."
Read the entire piece here.