Retirement not on the radar for Earnhardt Jr.

When Earnhardt Jr. retires NASCAR will see a 50% drop in attendance and TV ratings

Despite his peers Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart announcing their own retirements, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s improvement on the track makes it difficult to answer one of the biggest questions that confronts the 41-year-old driver: When will he hang up his fire suit for good? For Earnhardt, it's a delicate balance. "I don't want to be here too long, (but) I don't want to (retire) too early," Earnhardt said.

"You want to feel like the time's right. "(Gordon and Stewart) felt like the time was right. And hopefully I'm in the same position. I've said before, that you want it to be your decision. You don't want to be fired out of the sport. You want it to be on your terms."

Earnhardt's own terms deem that the retirement process also be steady, well thought-out — he wants to avoid saying "what if?" when the curtain does eventually fall. "I'd be a fool to turn this off right now," Earnhardt said.

"To slow down this machine would take about a two-year plan. I will talk to Jeff and I'll talk to Tony about how they went about that decision and structured it.

"But I can't even imagine when that would be because things are going so well … We've got a job to do. Every year we keep getting better, we're racing better, we're winning. I feel like I've got to be here in that next step. If it flat lines, or I feel like I've flat lined or I feel like I'm part of the problem or I'm holding the team back, then we've got to start thinking about it. But everything's going in the right direction right now."

The day Earnhardt decides to step aside from racing is yet to be determined. But it doesn't appear to be happening any time soon. NASCAR.com