DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Dale Earnhardt Jr. was feted again Friday at Darlington Raceway, receiving another send-off gift as he embarks on the final 12-race stretch of his career.
Sunday's Bojangles' Southern 500 (6 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM) will inch him another step closer to the last race in his full-time career. Though he'll remain in the sport with spot duty in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and a new role in the NBC Sports broadcast booth, both he and his family are bracing for that farewell, scheduled Nov. 19 in the Homestead-Miami Speedway season finale.
"I've been thinking about it a little bit as we get closer because this will go by pretty quick, these last few races will go by pretty fast, so it's going to be here before I know it," Earnhardt said after Friday's practices at the historic 1.366-mile track. "I haven't really had any emotions yet and I know I will be sad as well. It's hard to put so much into something and then have to stop doing it and change directions. No matter why you are retiring or having to change what you are doing. When you put so much into it, it is hard to make that change.
"And I don't really know what I'm going to miss. If I knew what I was going to miss it would be more emotional and harder to deal with, but the fact that I'm not quite sure exactly what is going to be the most difficult part about it it's really not set in yet."
Darlington had a number of lasting tributes for Earnhardt and his family on Friday, the opening day of the sport's annual NASCAR Throwback weekend. Track president Kerry Tharp presented the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 driver with a commemorative print and a program to donate 88 tickets annually to young fans in the region to future Southern 500s.
Those proclamations came after Friday morning's dedication of the Turn 3 suites as Earnhardt Towers, a ceremony attended by Earnhardt Jr.'s sister, Kelley Earnhardt Miller. Earnhardt Miller said plans are already in motion to celebrate her brother's final race, bringing those eventualities into sharper focus.
"I mean, I'm going to cry a lot. I may as well pack mostly tissues in my suitcase," Earnhardt Miller said. "I just know I'm going to cry because at most events when there's anything that's historical or involves my family or something coming to an end or changing, that's just what I do. I don't know how it's going to be. It's certainly going to be probably surreal in the moment.
"It's going to be very busy because my team on the brand side for Dale are going to have our hands full for the weekend coordinating and entertaining sponsors, and so it's probably going to be one of those things in the moment that you just work through because you've got a lot of things to handle and do. Then you're going to look back on it and realize maybe that you didn't take in some moments, so I'm probably going to have to be pretty mindful of that as I go through the weekend. But it's going to be sad."
His special paint scheme is already decided and other plans are in development, but Earnhardt Jr. admitted he won't know how he'll react to the emotions of the moment. He drew a corollary Friday to the departure of his former crew chief, Steve Letarte, at the end of the 2014 season.
"I'm not quite sure how that is going to work out," said Earnhardt, who will be reunited with Letarte next season on the NBC Sports team. "I know that I never really thought about what that would be like until Steve ran his last race with me at Homestead and he was as cool as a cucumber all weekend, at least in front of everybody, in front of me and the guys in the hauler and everything.
"He was great all the way up until every race would lean in the car, we would shake hands, we would say a few words about 'have a good day, I’m here with you, we are going to work together,' all those things that you like a crew chief to say and as soon as he come in there and started talking he just fell out and started crying and bawling like a baby. And I thought, man, and I started crying, too, to be honest with you. It was a difficult moment. So, I imagine that is going to be part of it for me and it’s going to be hard to not have those emotions at that last race."