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Hendrick Motorsports announced in a tweet on Tuesday morning that driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. will retire from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at the end of the 2017 season.

Earnhardt was voted the most popular driver 14 times by NASCAR fans since his racing career began in 1999. He has 603 career starts and 26 wins on the circuit. He won the Daytona 500 in 2004 and 2014.

Earnhardt joins former teammate Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart — former champions and immensely popular stars — to retire from NASCAR in the last couple of years. Carl Edwards, another popular driver, stepped away from NASCAR at the end of the 2016 season.

“In a very short time, we’ve had Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. retire — three of the drivers who have had the most impact on the sport in their generation," Fox NASCAR play-by-play announcer Mike Joy said in a statement. "I remember when (Richard) Petty, (David) Pearson, (Bobby) Allison and (Cale) Yarborough were at the tail end of their careers and everyone was bemoaning, ‘Oh, my gosh, who will step up? Will we have any heroes? Will we have any superstars?’ And, of course, we did. That’s the way sports go. Someone retires and someone else takes their place."

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Earnhardt made his first career Cup Series start on May 30, 1999, at Charlotte Motor Speedway. His first win came at the DirecTV 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in April 2000. He will compete in his final Cup Series race on Nov. 19 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

A third-generation driver; his father Dale Earnhardt Sr. won seven NASCAR championships, tying Richard Petty for most all-time. His grandfather Ralph, raced from 1955-66 and had 16 top 10 finishes. Both were selected to NASCARS's list of 50 best drivers.

For most, if not all of his career, Earnhardt has been NASCAR's biggest star. He has a down-home demeanor, and fans view him as approachable. He comes across as polite and even sometimes shy.

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Maybe, most importantly, he is the son of Dale Earnhardt, who besides Petty, was the most popular driver in the sport's history. Junior was just a year away from getting started when his father won his only Daytona 500 and then was two years in when Dale Sr. was killed at Daytona.

“Dale Jr. has had a huge impact on our sport — and you can see that every week with his legion of fans and Junior Nation," Gordon said in a statement. "He has a tremendous sense of the history of NASCAR and, while he shares his father’s name, Dale has made a name for himself with his accomplishments in racing. While we will miss Dale on the track next year, he loves this sport, those working in the industry and the fans too much to ever be too far away.”

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In 2012, Forbes magazine ranked Earnhardt seventh overall on its list of “Most Influential Athletes.” In January 2013, BusinessWeek magazine named Earnhardt to its top 100 most influential people in sports. In May 2016, ESPN ranked Earnhardt as the most famous auto racing driver in the world.

Earnhardt tops all NASCAR and IndyCar drivers on MVPindex’s 2016 social media power rankings. He has a following of more than 5.2 million across his three main social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Earnhardt has been plagued by concussion problems in the past few years and missed half of last season because of it. And he has gotten off to a slow start in 2017, with just one top-10 finish in eight races, including a 38th-place finish following a crash Monday at Bristol Motor Speedway.

“When you look at his age, the length of his career and what he has been through the last few years, it’s not surprising," former crew chief and Fox NASCAR analyst Larry McReynolds said in a statement. "But the timing blew me away — a Tuesday after a Monday makeup race due to a rainout. ... From the standpoint of leadership and a driver who is listened to by the industry and fans when he speaks, not to mention his popularity, this is a big hit for NASCAR. But I don’t think Dale Jr. will fade away from view."

Reaction from the racing world to the announcement has been swift:

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