Dale Earnhardt Jr. enjoys beer, laughter after last Cup Series race

First there was a long embrace with team owner Rick Hendrick, followed by high fives and handshakes with his crew members. Then out came the Yeti cooler with the camouflage top stocked with Budweiser and Bud Light.

“Do you want a red or a blue?” the crew guy tasked with distributing beer repeatedly asked those surrounding the No. 88 Chevrolet.

What ensued was a fitting way to cap Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s final Cup Series start; a collective toast to the career of NASCAR’s most popular driver. For an hour Earnhardt stood on pit road next to his car and had a beer with his team. Not that he could’ve left if wanted to, a mob of media and fans left no avenue for escape.

“We’re going to miss you, Junior,” was the most common refrain from the masses who encircled him.

So Earnhardt sipped beer with his crew guys and friends. They laughed and basked in the exact kind of ending Earnhardt had envisioned when he said he wanted to make it to the finish line Sunday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“I told them a couple weeks ago, the only thing I care about really is finishing all the laps and pulling down pit road and getting out of the car and having a beer with my team,” Earnhardt said. “These are my brothers, and we’re very close, and I want to just have a moment with them before I leave and go home.”

Although a win would’ve been a storybook way to cap his career, that was going to be a difficult. The Chevrolet painted in a red-and-black scheme that mirrored what Earnhardt drove in his first Cup race in 1999, just didn’t have the speed necessary to allow its driver to be any sort of factor. He would finish 25th, two laps behind Martin Truex Jr., who not only won the Ford 400 but the 2017 championship.

But on this night, where Earnhardt finished was inconsequential. This was about having a memorable sendoff. As evident by the scene post-race, which resembled a bunch of guys sitting around a bar shooting the bull only with a car roof acting as tabletop, that objective was certainly fulfilled.

“It’s hard to understand that relationship that you have with those guys, but it’s very close,” Earnhardt said. “We’re a big part of each other’s lives away from the track and support each other in everything going on in our personal lives.”

Of course there were tears. It really hit Earnhardt during the moment he had with Hendrick, who in many respects has become a second father to Earnhardt. Owner and driver even struck a deal where Hendrick got the helmet Earnhardt wore Sunday in exchange for gifting Earnhardt the car he raced.

“I didn’t cry until I was hugging Rick’s neck,” Earnhardt said. “Man, he’s been like a father to me with the things he’s done for me personally. He’s really helped me more than anybody will ever know.”

Earnhardt isn’t completely done with NASCAR. Not by any means. He co-owns a successful Xfinity Series team, JR Motorsports, which won its second championship in four years Saturday night. He will also join NBC as an analyst where he will have a prominent role on the network’s NASCAR coverage next season. And he will continue to make the occasional start in Xfinity, including at least two in 2018.

This, though, was Earnhardt’s last time in the NASCAR’s major leagues. After Sunday night he ceased being a full-time driver, instead he will now move on to the next chapter of his life. He and wife Amy, who will celebrate their one-year anniversary next month, are expecting their first child in the spring.

And as customary when someone ends one phase to begin a new journey, it deserved an adult beverage. On a hot and humid South Florida night, Earnhardt remarked multiple times how cold the beer tasted. A second cooler would be summoned, then a third.

Eventually the party broke up, though not before Earnhardt walked around and personally express his gratitude to each crew member. Connections he says will extend well beyond his driving career.

“I’ve worked with a lot of those guys for a lot of years,” Earnhardt said. “We’ve been down and we’ve been out, and we never turned on each other. We stayed together. We finished this together. It’s meant a lot to me. Those relationships I’ll have beyond driving racecars.”