Daytona Beach has changed; how Dale Earnhardt Jr. feels about it has not | RYAN PRITT

From the racetrack to the press box, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s vantage point of Daytona International Speedway has certainly changed over the years.

His viewpoint of it, and the surrounding city, he says, has not.

He’s made sure of it. No matter what.

“I’ve tried not to let it change a lot,” he says.

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Just an hour or so prior to going on the air for Xfinity Series qualifying on Friday, he sits alone in the NBC broadcast booth, gazing out the window and over the 447 acres of land and the 2½-mile tri-oval that in so many ways, have defined his life.

He’s gracious with his time. He’s cautious with his words. Long pauses frequent the space between sentences as he approaches each phrase with purpose and precision.

“I know physically, Daytona as a city has changed over the last two decades a lot, but I look at it and see the same Daytona I’ve always seen … I love it,” he concludes. “Got a lot of great memories here — some bad memories — but I’ve got so many great memories here.”

From his lofty perch in the press box, Earnhardt Jr. doesn’t need to look far to be reminded.

A glance to the left, out toward Turn 4, he can find the very spot where his father Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s car came to rest after a fatal crash on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

A peek straight down brings the track’s infield into view, a patch of green in the sea of gray where he would park his own car just a few months later after whipping the competition in winning that year’s Pepsi 400. He climbed atop his Budweiser No. 8 Chevrolet that night, arms outstretched, flash bulbs exploding from a full grandstand like fireflies lighting up an Appalachian summer night.

Emotionally speaking, it was the Mariana Trench and the summit of Everest separated by a few months and less than a mile of high-banked asphalt. And yet, neither are the memories he speaks of first.

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Like most of us, he instead romanticizes about his childhood and for him, maybe it’s even more understandable. He harkens back to his own age of innocence, before the tragedy and triumph, before the weight of the racing world was thrust upon his shoulders.

“Even though I lost my dad here, I know how much he loved this track, I know how much he loved this area,” he begins. “Going down to the little marina down there and eating at the restaurant and having his boat tied up next to Bill (France) Jr.’s and Rick’s (Hendrick) and all those guys … When we came to Daytona, it was a trip.

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"We went to all the other races and we went to the racetrack and we raced. When we came to Daytona, we enjoyed the town. We went to the beach. We went to all the places.”

As an adult, it’s been hard for Earnhardt Jr. to go many places. In fact, Friday’s interview is done in the solitude of the booth, partly because emerging outside of the press box walls would likely attract droves of waiting fans.

Not that he’s ever complained about such things. To the contrary, he’s mostly embraced them.

And what choice did he have? Few athletes if any carried the hoards of fans his father did and when they were left looking for something to cling to in the wake of his death, they found his namesake. Senior’s fans were Junior’s fans and when he climbed out of his car on that Daytona summer night in 2001, all parties let go of months of grief and despair.

Even in the East Florida heat, everyone in a sold-out crowd was fraught with chills. He may have been the first and only winner in the history of motorsports with a 100% approval rating.

He hasn’t seen much of a downturn in that number since. Through owning an Xfinity Series organization (JR Motorsports), broadcasting, and podcasting on his show, the Dale Jr. Download, he’s remained very visible in the sport he grew up in. And each year, it brings him right back to where he sat on Friday.

And through it all, he says that spot still feels like home.

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“I love sitting right here, where I’m at right now,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It feels comfortable. You know that this is the cornerstone of the sport. It’s an important part of the history of the sport and it feels that way right now. It feels like you’re somewhere special and you’re going to see something incredible this weekend. You just don’t know what it will be. But you’re going to see something pretty spectacular.”

As the conversation comes to an end, he’s asked one last question about his podcast and what it’s like to be on the other side of an interview.

“There’s some good days and bad days. Some wins and losses.”

When it comes to Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Daytona International Speedway, there couldn’t have been a more fitting closing statement.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Dale Earnhardt Jr. 'comfortable' in Daytona Beach at Speedway