Now that Dale Earnhardt Jr., the longtime most eligible bachelor of the Sprint Cup Series, is engaged, for whom will the wedding bells toll next in NASCAR?
Grab those save the date notices and a scorecard.
Naturally, the focus will shift to Danica Patrick, one of NASCAR’s most marketable stars, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. They confirmed in Feb. 2013 that they were a couple. No announcement likely would shake social media as much as Earnhardt’s engagement did Tuesday morning than Patrick and Stenhouse.
Patrick wrote last October for The Players Tribune site about her relationship with Stenhouse and why it worked despite racing against one another: “Everyone deserves to be happy. You don’t get to choose what truly makes you happy, and we’re not the first couple to navigate the workplace romance waters.
“We constantly have our families around. ... Now we have a dog (with her own Twitter account @DallasStenhouse), and it makes me think about the question of children, so that’s a decision for us to consider in our future. This is stuff that I didn’t entertain before I was with him and it’s a big part of my life now. It’s a question that every ambitious, working woman has to grapple with.’'
Another famous couple in Cup is Martin Truex Jr. and Sherry Pollex, who has been recovering well from a battle with ovarian cancer that she began last August -- adding an emotional sheen to Truex’s recent victory at Pocono Raceway. If the longtime couple got engaged, wouldn’t that be a fitting way to accentuate a magnificent year for them on and off the track?
With Earnhardt’s name scratched off the list, the biggest name to remain unattached is Tony Stewart. The three-time series champion was engaged once early in his Sprint Cup career and has had a few long-term girlfriends but hasn’t been married yet.
With his newfound devotion to avid social media engagement (plunging into Twitter last year and Periscope two weeks ago), we probably would learn about Stewart’s proposal in real time -- just as we did from Earnhardt’s fiancee, Amy Reimann.
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