Dale Earnhardt Jr. Makes Return To NASCAR Tonight!

One of NASCAR’s most popular names will be retuning to competition this weekend. Dale Earnhardt Jr has announced that he will be returning to the cockpit this weekend. If you recall, we recently shared a video of Junior behind the wheel of the pace car when current championship contender Kyle Busch gave him a little love tap. Well it seems that tap, which was all in fun, served to rekindle Dale Jr’s fire to drive.

Junior, who was annually voted by the fans as the most popular driver on tour nearly every year he competed, was known to have most of his success on super speedways, the longest and fastest tracks on the circuit. However, he will be making his return at one of the shortest tracks on tour, Richmond Raceway. Earnhardt will be piloting his iconic #88 Chevrolet during this weekend’s Xfinity stop at the Virginia facility.

After walking away from the sport last year, there have been rumors and speculation about Junior returning to driving duty on a part-time basis, and it would seem some of those rumors may have had merit. Dale has been busy in his retirement, getting married and having a baby with new wife Amy, as well as joining the broadcast team in the booth as a commentator.

As is the case with many drivers, though, that competitive fire is clearly still burning. Despite having been dinged up pretty often with many concussions throughout his career, Dale had elected to rejoin his fellow drivers doing what he loves and what helped him build his estimated $400 million net worth.

Junior had pretty good success in the Xfinity series throughout his career, but the series has suffered a noticeable decline in fan interest and television ratings over the past few years. Hopefully Junior’s presence will pull in some new fans as well as his countless thousands of followers to breathe new life into the series.