Earnhardt family moving on from plane crash with perspective

DARLINGTON, S.C. — The word he was looking for is perspective. For the first time since his private plane crashed two weeks ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. publicly spoke out and answered questions about the accident. Dale, wife Amy and daughter Isla are all fine after having been onboard when the plane rolled off the runway and caught fire in Tennessee. Now, they’re just trying to get back to everyday normal activities. “It was a very tough experience to go through,” Dale said Friday at Darlington Raceway. “I try not to really get into that and think about that too much. Things happen for a reason. You just try to learn from it and move on. “I love my daughter so much and enjoy being around her. I look forward to watching her grow up and experience a lot of things with her going forward. That just made me realize that much more. I’m just thankful and ready to live our lives.” RELATED: Earnhardt family safe after plane crash Isla is just a year old. Dale and Amy have been married for two years. Their life together as a family has just begun. The crash, which happened at Elizabethton Municipal Airport, was a reminder of that fact. “There’s a lot of things in your life that you go through that help you order your priorities,” Earnhardt said. “It reminds you sometimes what’s important, what’s not-so-important.” Easy. “It’s hard to prioritize anything over your daughter during just a typical day,” Earnhardt said. “A lot of times I’m just sitting with her, talking about balls and slides and her pits and whatever else she’s seeing around her that she wants to play with and do. Me and Amy just spend a lot of time sort of trying to get her education of what’s going around her.” There were no serious injuries reported after the crash. Dale later tweeted his lower back was bruised, but he has since recovered and been cleared physically. No issues with his concussion history, either. Dale said he doesn’t have a problem with ever flying again and the best advice he has received is to get back on the horse, so to speak. He’s used to being mentally tough anyway. It’s normal for a former full-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver. “I think that it’s just being in a race car, we go out there on the race track, crash into the wall, flip upside down and the first thing you think of is how good is the backup car, why did that happen and how can we stop the next car from doing that,” Dale said. “I think the repetition of doing that all my life has insulated me from some typical emotional reactions that you might have in situations like that.” RELATED: All of Earnhardt’s Cup wins | Earnhardt’s best No. 8 paint schemes Speaking of being in a race car, Dale will actually partake in Saturday’s Xfinity Series event at Darlington – Sport Clips Haircuts VFW 200 (4 p.m. ET, NBC/NBC Sports App, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). This will be his second race since retiring from full-time competition after the 2017 season. The first was at Richmond Raceway last year. And just like that time, Amy will be present with Isla. “She’ll never remember that,” Earnhardt said. “She might not remember this race either. But it’s fun having them around, especially when I’m racing.”