Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins 2017 NASCAR Most Popular Driver Award

It was going to take the upset of all upsets for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to not win the Most Popular Driver Award for a record 15th consecutive year. Especially in the season where Earnhardt announced that he would retire from the NASCAR Cup Series at the conclusion of the current season.

The unexpected never occurred and the foregone conclusion is now a reality. Earnhardt was named NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver for 2017 during the Monster Energy Cup Series awards ceremony Thursday night at the Wynn in Las Vegas.

“I’ve got to thank the fans,” Earnhardt said. “Without them none of the opportunities I had in racing would have happened. It always comes back to the fans.”

Earnhardt, 43, announced in April he would retire at the end of the 2017 season, a decision prompted by recent health concerns -- concussion-like symptoms sidelined him for 18 races last season -- and a desire start a family with his wife, Amy. The couple, who will celebrate their one-year anniversary next month, is expecting their first child in early May.

Earnhardt is the only recipient of the Most Popular Driver award, administered by the National Motorsports Press Association, since Bill Elliott won following the 2002 season. Seventeen different drivers have won the award since its inception in 1956, with only Elliott’s 16 total wins exceeding Earnhardt’s 15.

The award is determined by a fan vote that began Sept. 3 and closed just after the season-ending race at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Nov. 19. During the 11-week voting period, Earnhardt earned nearly 68 percent of the votes tallied.

The Most Popular Driver Award wasn’t the lone piece of hardware Earnhardt picked up Thursday night. NASCAR CEO and chairman Brian France presented him with The Bill France Award of Excellence, named after NASCAR’s founder and an award not bestowed every year.

“I always tell people all the time, all I wanted to do was be able to pay my bills and be able to race a long time,” Earnhardt said. “I’ve always tried to take a lot of pride in taking the sport to new places and introducing it to new people.”

NASCAR did not reveal the runner-up finisher. The top-10 vote-getters were (listed alphabetically): Ryan Blaney, Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Kyle Larson, Danica Patrick, and Martin Truex Jr., the 2017 Cup champion.

Busch, who finished second to Truex in the championship and is often loudly booed during pre-race introductions, joked about Earnhardt’s legion of supporters during his speech.

“To Dale, thanks for the friendship that we’ve grown over the years, and of course for you converting Junior Nation into Rowdy fans,” Busch said. “It’s all going to be very different getting all those cheers next year at driver intros.”