Nothing has come easy to Siegel on his way to the top

Editor's note: This is Part 1 of a two-part feature on Max Siegel.
Part 2: Siegel and the issue of diversity in the sport

On his first day as president of global operations at Dale Earnhardt Inc., Max Siegel walked into a firestorm. The sport's most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., was in the final year of his contract and Siegel's job was to get Junior to stay with the team. Never mind the fact the odds were stacked against Siegel, having to overcome obstacles like the growing rift between Junior and his stepmother, team owner Teresa Earnhardt, and how much control Junior wanted of his late father's team.

Plus, with Teresa staying behind the cameras, Siegel became the face of the negotiations, taking the heat from fans and media that watched Junior leave for Hendrick Motorsports while DEI was left trying to fill the unfillable void.

"Year 1 was definitely on-the-job training," Siegel said. "Both in terms of getting my arm around how I can effectively serve my people in this organization and that was compounded by the daily scrutiny of the whole negotiations."

Max Siegel, welcome to NASCAR.

Although every step of Siegel's life has been full of adversity and challenges, this latest one was minor in comparison.

Siegel was born into the music business. His father was a record executive and his mother was a singer. Growing up in Indianapolis with his younger sister, Siegel's parents got divorced when he was 5 in what he describes as "nasty."

At first, Siegel and his sister visited their father on the weekends, but that soon changed when his father decided he wanted to keep his children on a more permanent basis.

"We went on our weekend visit to my dad and he kept us," Siegel said. "He's like, 'You're not going back home.' My sister was 2 and a half and I was 5. I didn't see my mother for like seven years; we moved around quite a bit with my father."

With dad on the road traveling for his career, Siegel found himself the man of the house at a very young age.

"While I was with my father, he traveled quite a bit and my stepmother had substance-abuse problems," Siegel said. "So I pretty much raised my sister and myself, literally from the time I was 6 years old."

Things didn't get easier for Siegel. When he was 11, his dad found out he had fourth-stage lymphoma -- he died a year later.

Siegel's mom returned and found her two kids, taking them back to Indianapolis with her, and putting Max and his sister into another horrible situation.

"My father did fairly well financially, so we went from living a pretty nice lifestyle to moving back with my mother who was struggling, literally living in the heart of the ghetto," Siegel said. "I think there were like eight of us living in a two-bedroom place with very little money.

"My parents were very loving, but my mother and my stepparents were very dysfunctional. They were functioning alcoholics."

At 14, Siegel moved out. He worked night jobs to afford taking care of himself and maintaining his education.

After graduating high school, Siegel was admitted to the University of Notre Dame, School of Law, no small feat for the troubled childhood he endured. (Continued)