Dale Earnhardt Jr. is calling it a season, meaning NASCAR's most popular driver won't be racing in the AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in November.
Earnhardt is stepping away from the sport to recover from concussion symptoms, he announced in a statement Friday, with the hope of returning in 2017.
TMS president Eddie Gossage applauded Earnhardt for putting his health first, although acknowledged it is a void in the racing world.
"You've got to give Junior credit for making the right decision because I'm sure he feels the pressure," Gossage said. "I don't think anyone is putting it on him, but I'm sure he feels pressure to the team and the sport, but the only thing that matters is his health. Hopefully he'll recover and be back at Daytona in February.
"My prayer is he has a full and complete life. Hopefully that includes racing, but you just don't want him having issues down the road. I'm sure the matters that you hear about from the NFL, I'm sure that weighs heavily on him."
Earnhardt, who turns 42 in October, has sat out the past six Cup races because of a concussion his doctors believe happened during a June 12 wreck at Michigan International Speedway.
Given his age and the long-term affects associated with concussions nowadays, it's fair to wonder how much longer Earnhardt will race. Earnhardt, though, made it clear last month that he has no intentions of retiring and wants to extend his career.
Still, the thought of NASCAR without Earnhardt has crossed Gossage's mind.
"Every sport goes through periods of times like this and I can remember newspaper stories of great woe of how NASCAR was really finished the retirements of Richard Petty, Cale Yarborough and Bobby Allison," Gossage said. "And we went on to bigger heights from that. Just as the NFL is dealing with not having Peyton Manning and others, every sport goes through that.
"But, you know, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is money. Period. I mean that literally in the sense that he draws money because he draws attention. He draws money for the sport. The sport will carry on (when Earnhardt is done), but I believe Junior when he says he's not done racing.
"He still has that desire and I think that's great. He had one of the best seasons of his career last year and he can certainly do the job. But, I'll tell you this _ Junior is already a Hall of Famer based on his numbers alone."
Earnhardt has made five consecutive Chase appearances going into this season, and has Hall of Fame credentials as Gossage said. He's won 26 races, including two Daytona 500s, and has 252 top 10s in 595 career starts. The only thing that's missing is a championship.
Earnhardt has a strong history at Texas, too. His first Cup win happened at the track in April 2000, the same site of his first NASCAR Xfinity Series win in 1998.
"Those were rare moments when you knew as something is occurring that you were part of history," Gossage said. "Handing Dale his first Busch Series and then handing Dale his first Winston Cup trophy was a pretty cool thing. That's huge for us to be forever linked to Dale Jr.
"Whether he ever won again or not, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won NASCAR races at Texas. We needed those signature moments back in the day after a rough start (in the first couple years)."
Losing Earnhardt from the November field is a setback for TMS, of course, but Gossage feels the race will do just fine.
He pointed to it being the last time Tony Stewart runs at Texas as the top selling point to attract racing fans.
Alex Bowman is expected to fill in for Earnhardt during the Texas race. Bowman has an average finish in 37.0 in four Cup races at Texas so far in his young career.
Jeff Gordon is also being used as a replacement driver for Earnhardt the rest of the season, but Gossage jokingly guessed why the future Hall of Famer opted not to run at Texas.
"I would think this is all because Jeff doesn't want to give back the Shetland ponies," Gossage said, referring to TMS' retirement gift to Gordon last year.
