RICHMOND, Va. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. was already planning to do some renovation in Key West, but with a possibly devastating Hurricane Irma due to hit South Florida this weekend, Earnhardt may have his work cut out for him.

Earlier this year, NASCAR’s most popular driver announced that he and his wife Amy would star in a DIY Network (Do It Yourself Network) show that would document their renovations of their house on the most famous of the Florida Keys.

“The series will follow Dale and Amy as they transform a dilapidated historic home into a gorgeous modern retreat in the Old Town historic district,” the network said May 9 when announcing the project that is expected to hit the air next year. “The show will combine Dale’s love of home improvement with Amy’s interior design expertise.”

But with the prospect of Irma causing massive destruction not only in the Keys but throughout the entire Florida peninsula, Earnhardt wasn’t focused on his property but on the community he has come to know and love.

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"Whatever happens to the property happens to the property. It is not nothing that can’t be fixed,” said Earnhardt, who races Saturday night at Richmond Raceway with one final opportunity to qualify for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series playoffs.

“We got to know that whole community down there really well,” Earnhardt said Friday. “We have been going down there half a dozen times a year for the last 10 years, and so we have met just about everybody in town and built a lot of good friendships. So, just hoping the community pulls together, they, number one, get through it and then they pull together and fix everything that gets torn up.“

Earnhardt pitched the renovation project to DIY Network and HGTV, who immediately expressed interest. On his website DaleJr.com, the 42-year-old driver who is retiring from fulltime Cup racing at the end of the season, described how the project came about:

“There’s kind of a cool process that you go through in Key West with the [Historic Architectural Review Commission] on how you can renovate homes down there and what you can fix and can’t fix. Like if you have a rotten board, they only let you replace the rotten area. You’ve got to keep the rest, and so on. And they go through the whole house, sort of picking apart what you can and can’t fix. So, I was thinking this would make a great show.

“The historical folks, the folks down there that are in charge of the Old Town, you can’t just demolish houses. They want everything to look the same and look like it’s been for a hundred years.”

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