The Earnhardt name doesn’t need an introduction in NASCAR. But a few people carrying the surname don’t get nearly the credit they deserve despite driving just as hard as anyone else. One of them is Karsyn Elledge. She’s Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s granddaughter, Kelley Earnhardt Miller and Jimmy Elledge’s daughter, and Dale Jr.’s niece. Before any of that family connections mattered, though, she was just a kid who could really drive a race car.
“It makes me think back and wish I did things differently because I possess so many more qualities now, mentally and physically, that I would have needed what was happening to me at 19 to happen to me right now,” she said in her latest interview with Kenny Wallace on YouTube.
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“I just kind of wish I had a do-over of that era right now.”
That’s her. Talking to Kenny Wallace about the racing career she walked away from years ago. She came up at Millbridge Speedway in North Carolina, beating drivers twice her age in Mini Outlaw Box Stock. From there she jumped to the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals, running for serious outfits like Tucker-Boat Motorsports. And Wallace is familiar with those races.
“You are nervy. You get with it. I mean, you go right through the wall, you turn it,” Wallace appreciated her.
But as her career was gaining momentum, COVID happened, and her whole plan changed. She was a teenager when the pause hit, and it gave her room to actually think about whether full-time racing was the life she wanted.
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“I’ve taken too big of a swing the other way and made decisions that have sort of put my career and my life in a different direction,” she admitted. “I don’t know that full-time competing is ever in the cards for me. However, if I were ever offered the opportunity, I probably wouldn’t say no.”
What she really wants now, though, is the chance to do it all with what she’s learned since.
But now that she’s distanced herself from the racing world, she has stayed busy elsewhere. She built her own clothing line, Raceline Apparel. She worked marketing at Mamba Media, hosted a Nickelodeon NASCAR show as a teenager, and now runs digital content for the CARS Tour alongside her sister Kennedy, work that’s included physically breaking up a Victory Lane fight, something Dale Jr. publicly praised her for.
She also pops up on podcasts, where fans get to know her better. But her refusal to play it safe doesn’t come from nowhere.
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Where that fearlessness actually comes from: the NASCAR blood connection
Her grandfather proved it decades earlier, in one of the wildest pit stops NASCAR’s ever seen. At the 1980 season finale at Ontario, Dale Earnhardt Sr. held a thin 29-point lead over three-time champion Cale Yarborough. His crew chief had quit mid-season, leaving a 20-year-old named Doug Richert running a green pit crew.
Earnhardt came into the box too hot, clipped the wall, scattered his own guys, and gunned the gas before the jack even cleared the car. He launched off the box with it dragging underneath him.
Somehow, nothing broke. No tire blew, no fuel cell ruptured, nobody got hurt. He finished fifth that day. Yarborough finished third but didn’t lead enough laps to close the gap. Earnhardt walked away with his first championship by 19 points and became the only driver in history to win Rookie of the Year and a Cup title back-to-back.
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Reckless. Chaotic. Completely unbothered by any of it. Karsyn never got to race against her grandfather. But anyone who’s watched her drive already knows exactly where that comes from.
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The post “Wish I Had a Do-Over” Dale Earnhardt’s Granddaughter Makes Emotional Racing Confession Years After Stepping Away appeared first on EssentiallySports. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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