NASCAR Cup Series

'Retired mechanic' Dale Earnhardt Jr. recalls life on the old job

Published Feb. 16, 2016 3:35 p.m. ET

foxsports

Dale Earnhardt Jr. refers to himself on his Twitter profile as "a retired dealership service mechanic."

Apparently, he was pretty good at his job, too.

During a lighthearted media session on Tuesday at Daytona International Speedway, the third-generation driver took a few minutes to ruminate out loud about his days just out of high school when he worked at his legendary father's Chevrolet dealership in Newton, North Carolina.

"I changed a lot of oil. I know that," said Earnhardt, now a two-time Daytona 500 champion and 26-time race winner in NASCAR's top series. "And I had a lot of fun doing that, and I think I was there for two-and-a-half years. It was a fun time. I haven't really run across anybody that has said, 'You used to change oil in my car,' back then."

The Hendrick Motorsports driver then offered a rather vivid description of his duties at Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet, where he toiled long before becoming one of NASCAR's biggest and most beloved stars.

"I didn't run the alignment machine," Earnhardt said. "I was a Quick Lube guy. I got moved to a couple different positions for a couple months at a time, but always kind of ended up back at the Quick Lube machine. And that was strictly my job, and they had that 29 minutes or less deal [for an oil change], and it was fun. I got put on commission for a week and I made too much money and they took me back off commission because I was doing them in eight minutes."

So what was his record time for changing oil?

"I was doing them pretty fast," Earnhardt said. "When I learned I could make money doing it, I was going through them pretty quick."

Maybe even a little too quick.

"One time I drove out of the lot without the filter on the car and ran all the oil out of it right through the parking lot," Earnhardt said. "It was hilarious."