NBC sports has made the announcement we all expected was coming. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be showing up often on NBC broadcasts of various sports via ABC News. In addition to NASCAR races later in the season, Earnhardt will be featured on the Super Bowl pre-game show, as well as select Winter Olympic broadcasts.
His Olympic duties will at least include speed skating and bobsleds, two sports based on something Junior knows plenty about: speed.
"We can't wait to get Dale's take on what is one of the most compelling aspects of the Winter Games -- sports that offer a mix of speed with the prospect of danger, an equation that he knows very well," said the president of NBC Olympics Production and Programming, Jim Bell. "Instead of the turns at Daytona, it's the downhill, the luge, and the short track oval. And I think he will have something unique to offer about the need for speed on snow and ice."
Even though the assignments will be brand new, Earnhardt thinks NBC just wants him to be himself.
"It's not going to be putting me anywhere outside of my comfort zone, obviously I've never been to a Super Bowl or South Korea," Earnhardt said to The Associated Press. "What they are asking me to do is just go out there and be myself and hopefully get people interested in tuning into NASCAR."
Not only will he be an ambassador for NASCAR, but the super bowl and Olympics will benefit from Junior Nation trying to get every glimpse of their favorite driver.