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Dale Earnhardt Jr. discusses his role in sport on ‘The Dan Patrick Show’

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Dale Jr. talks about taking pride in being a mechanic before racing paid off, his future in NASCAR, and Tony Stewart's surprise engagement.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t foresee himself being a great NASCAR President if ever offered the opportunity but said in a wide-ranging interview Thursday on “The Dan Patrick Show” that he’d like to have an influence on the sport.

Earnhardt, who is in Las Vegas for tonight’s Cup Awards program (7 p.m. ET, red carpet NASCAR America special, followed by Awards show at 9 p.m. ET on NBCSN), spoke to Patrick by phone for more than 20 minutes.

MORE: Dale Jr. named 2018 Daytona 500 Grand Marshal

One of the questions Patrick asked Earnhardt is if he’d like to be NASCAR President some day.

“Would I want to be? I don’t really know,’' Earnhardt said. “It’s not as easy to come up with a solution for everything. A lot of people have opinions about things that are going on in the sport. The sport is in a really good place, in my opinion personally, but everybody has opinions on what could be different. It’s not really easy to come up with those solutions. The other side of that, too, no matter what you come up with, people are going to bash it. You’re never going to win. I think it would be interesting to be in those conversations, to be in those board room meetings to understand a little bit more about what’s going on and how they come to decisions that they come to.

“I don’t think I would want to be a president of NASCAR, nor do I think I would be a great president for the sport. I think I could be just underneath that in maybe a Mike Helton style role or a Steve O’Donnell style role where I have some influence, but I think the France family ... always should be the leaders of the sport. They were the ones that brought this together and created it. I think it would be fun, and I do believe it’s something that I would be good at if I could be an influence in the sport someway, somehow.’'

Earnhardt also talked about his childhood, his father, his early job as a mechanic, what he’ll miss most about not driving full-time in Cup, the Washington Redskins and hanging out with Tony Stewart in Las Vegas this week.

Watch the video above and below for what Earnhardt had to say to Dan Patrick.