Dale Earnhardt Jr. can’t find the time to see one of his favorite bands play, so he got them a gig at a race track when he’ll be there too.

A few years ago, he was listening to an alternative rock Pandora station when a song from the band The Dangerous Summer came on. The more songs of theirs he heard, the more intrigued he became.

But by the time Earnhardt discovered he liked the band’s pop punk music, the group had broken up. So the then-active NASCAR driver reached out to frontman AJ Perdomo, and the unlikely duo became friends over the years. The musician even went to NASCAR races at Sonoma Raceway and Auto Club Speedway.

“We were just introducing each other to our worlds, and I was secretly hoping that the band would eventually get back together,” Earnhardt told For The Win by phone Wednesday. “He didn’t seem to be convinced it would happen.”

Luckily for Earnhardt, Perdomo was wrong. The band got back together and, thanks to Junior, is performing at Pocono Raceway on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s Cup Series Gander Outdoors 400 race.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drs5aXT5mas

Despite the band’s reunion and that it filmed a music video in December for the song, Ghosts — which was also produced by his company, Hammerhead Entertainment — on Dale Jr.’s property in Mooresville, North Carolina, Earnhardt still hasn’t seen them play a full set.

He said that about six months ago, he and NASCAR driver Ryan Blaney — who is one of only a few drivers whose music taste overlaps with Earnhardt’s — saw The Dangerous Summer play in Pittsburgh. But it was only a 30-minute show and that wasn’t enough.

However, between Earnhardt’s newborn daughter, Isla, and his new job broadcasting races for NBC, he doesn’t have time to travel and see the band on tour. So he realized he had to get The Dangerous Summer to perform at a race track.

He knew the right people, found the best track and will finally get to see one of his favorite bands perform a full concert.

“I have a real bad habit of always trying to show everybody the songs that I love, and it’s almost annoying to be that person, like, ‘Oh, you gotta hear this song!'” Earnhardt said.

“You’re not gonna go to a NASCAR race and expect to see a pop punk band, and, to me, they’re a recognizable band in that genre. In that scene, they’re stars. But it’s not the NASCAR scene.”

The show is free to NASCAR fans camping at the race track, and it’s $10 per car for admission otherwise. As Earnhardt joked on his weekly podcast, “You can put 20 people in a Suburban, and it’s still 10 bucks.”

Junior did admit that while he’s introducing NASCAR fans to music he loves by helping organize and promote their Saturday show, he’s doing this for selfish reasons too.

“For me, the real joy and fun in music is the search and the exploring outside of (what’s on the radio) and trying to find something you never heard of,” he told FTW. “And I never would have found The Dangerous Summer without being a Lord Huron fan, and I never would have found Lord Huron if I wasn’t a Twenty One Pilots fan. …

“If you aren’t careful, you can find yourself listening to the same songs over and over again and not discovering anything that’s new somewhere else, so I don’t want to be left behind.”