Dale Earnhardt Jr. has earned almost $90 million in prize money during his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career (and that’s not counting his endorsement deals). Needless to say, he’s got a healthy bank account.
But that didn’t stop him from buying a ticket for the recent $564 million Powerball drawing - something that his girlfriend, Amy Reimann, gave him grief for.
“Amy got mad at me. She’s like, ‘What the hell are you buying a Powerball ticket for? You don’t need to be winning it,’ ” Earnhardt said today during a press conference at Daytona International Speedway. “And I promised her right then I would split half with a charity. So, she made me feel pretty bad.”
Earnhardt said that during his recent Daytona 500 media tour in New York City, he picked up a Quick Pick ticket from “this little kiosk of all kinds of different stuff.”
“Somebody was buying one when we walked by and I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to get me one,’” he said. “I don’t even know what I’m doing. Just give me the ticket.”
Earnhardt ended up hitting the Powerball number, but not the big prize. He earned $12 - which would be enough for a few bottles of one of his sponsors, Diet Mountain Dew. But we can probably assume he gets those for free.
As for why he decided to buy a ticket, Earnhardt pointed to a group of employees on his property.
“We’ve got a group text with all the guys that work on the farm,” he explained. “We text pictures back and forth of our Powerball tickets to each other. So, we have a little fun with that.”