Dale Earnhardt Jr. explains how his daughters have come to understand NASCAR

Now that Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s daughters are getting older, they’re starting to understand how racing works. The legendary NASCAR driver explained how during an appearance on TODAY on Thursday.

Earnhardt, who has two daughters, Isla and Nicole, appeared on the morning show to talk about his new children’s book, Buster Gets Back on Track. Before getting into the book, though, the former driver talked about his oldest, Isla, and how she’s starting to understand the racing aspect of the family’s life.

“Well, I don’t think they know much about my career, but Isla is 5, she just started kindergarten. So, she now realizes that when I go get in the car and she’s watching the race, that I’m actually in the car out there on the track,” Earnhardt said.

“For the first few years we were taking her to the racetrack. (It was) her watching this one event, right? She’s like, ‘OK, I saw him getting in the car,’ but she couldn’t connect it. Me being out on the racetrack and competing, she didn’t really know what all that meant. But now she gets it. She was sad that we didn’t win the race.”

Racing icon @DaleJr and opens up about his car catching on fire while he was behind the wheel during a competition and his new children’s book called “Buster Gets Back on Track” that is a nod to his father. pic.twitter.com/1qlejK8LZQ

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 21, 2023

Earnhardt participated in the Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Friday night, part of NASCAR’s Xfinity Series circuit. He led for 47 laps and was in position for a great finish.

Unfortunately, the inside of the car caught fire, forcing Earnhardt to drive onto pit road and ask another pit crew for assistance. Instead of a potential top-five finish, he ended with a DNF.

The good news is that Earnhardt escaped without much injury. So, Isla might’ve been upset that her dad didn’t get the win Friday, she’s probably pretty thankful he escaped the car unscathed.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. explains fire at Bristol

Following last Friday’s race, Earnhardt opened up about what went wrong inside the car.

“So it started smoking, and I thought — Well, I started smelling something first. I though, ‘Man, maybe that’s the car in front of me, hopefully it’s the car in front of me. Then I started seeing a lot of smoke around the dash and above the dash,” Earnhardt said.

“I thought we just had some rubber build-up on the pipes. I was telling the team about it so maybe they could see through the wheels, maybe they could see a fire in there. … And then it was getting worse. The smoke was getting worse. I had them boys racing for the lead right in front of me, and I looked down at the leg brace and it was on fire. And I felt this sting in my leg. I thought, ‘Well, I can’t keep going.’

“If I would have kept going, it would’ve burnt me pretty bad. I don’t know if it would’ve went out, but I wasn’t willing to take that risk.”

Earnhardt plans to participate in one more Xfinity Series race this season, heading to the Miami-Homestead track.