Jeffrey Earnhardt, grandson of “The Intimidator” Dale Earnhardt and nephew of “Not As Intimidating But He’s In Jeans Commercials” Dale Earnhardt, Jr., races on the Rolex Sports Car Series and the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Starting this Tuesday, he’s pulling a Bo Jackson and becoming a two-sport athlete: Jeffrey (or as I like to call him, “Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.*”) is fighting at Fight Lab 25 in Charlotte, N.C. as an amateur, going up against bantamweight competitor Chris Faison.
We’re about to have an Earnhardt in MMA. Why, you ask? Because people don’t think driving is a real sport. Jeff is hoping to validate the athleticism of stock car racing by being athletic in a way that has nothing to do with stock cars or racing. No, really!
“A lot of people don’t see race car athletes as true athletes … They don’t think we’re capable of doing anything other than sitting in a car and driving in a circle. A lot of people don’t understand the reality of it. This is an opportunity to prove to people that race car drivers are athletes. It’s a lot harder than people realize. Hopefully this MMA fight will help people realize that, and that we can hold our own as athletes.” (via MMA Fighting)
I’m sure there are accountants out there that do CrossFit and could rip my arms off, that doesn’t mean accounting is a sport. And hey, just because fighting is a sport doesn’t mean everyone who does it is an athlete. I’m a blogger and I could probably knock out Bob Sapp.
Regardless of his intent, I’ll be watching. I’m pretty excited for a guy who smiles like that to enter the world of punching.
