KELLEY EARNHARDT EXPLAINS WHY SHE NEVER WORKED FOR HER FATHER AND NASCAR LEGEND DALE

NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt's daughter Kelley has revealed why she never worked at her father's race team. Dale Earnhardt, Inc. was founded in 1980 and ceased operations in 2009 to merge with Chip Ganassi Racing.

The Earnhardt name is forever etched into the history of NASCAR with the late seven-time Cup Series champion's legacy through his own triumphs as well as those of his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the team that bared his name.

While NASCAR runs through the Earnhardt DNA, his daughter Kelley, who's the child of Earnhardt and his second wife Brenda Gee Jackson - daughter of NASCAR car builder Robert Gee Jackson, never worked for her family's team.

Kelley addressed her absence from the team and suggested her complex family life was one of the main reasons. Her parents' marriage ended shortly after her brother Dale Jr.'s birth when Dale Sr. married Teresa Houston in 1982.

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Appearing on her brother's podcast, the Dale Jr. Download, Kelley opened up about the difficult family life which stopped her from joining the team. "I think a little bit, but I think that it had more to do with Teresa than anything, to be quite honest. He could put me in arms-length businesses that made sense, and he did," she said.

She continued to reflect on her dad's relationship with Teresa which Kelley felt didn't feel like a family with herself and Dale Jr. involved. "I'm sure we had our feelings then of how we failed and felt unloved or not. We just didn't have the right family unit, I'd say," Kelley added.

"But I don't think it bothered us as much in the end because we had such a good relationship. And keep in mind, we were going to our mom's and having a heck of a time in Virginia when we would go there, that would be awesome. We'd spend weekends with her when she would come down.

"So we had a good life, you know, when we had a roof over our heads and all that kind of thing. It's just that in the family with Dad and Teresa, it just wasn't very family loving, you know, situation."

Kelley learned to drive from her father as a teenager around the family farm before she began racing stock cars at local tracks. She raced frequently at Hickory Motor Speedway and Myrtle Beach Speedway before ending her racing career in 1996 after graduating from the University of North Carolina.

The entrepreneur has since teamed up with her brother Dale Jr. and co-owns JR Motorsports alongside her cousin Tony Eury Jr. and Rick Hendrick. She is valued by Celebrity Net Worth to be worth $50million.

2024-07-04T10:20:23Z dg43tfdfdgfd