Dale Earnhardt Jr. finds perfect time and place to get engaged

SONOMA, Calif. — The proposal didn't have to be perfect or scripted, Dale Earnhardt Jr. figured. It was the end result that mattered most.

Still, Earnhardt wanted the place where he proposed marriage to girlfriend Amy Reimann to be special. So last week, during an off-week trip to Germany where he traced his lineage, Earnhardt asked Reimann to marry him in a 300-year-old church his family attended more than 10 generations ago.

"I've been planning on it for several months," Earnhardt said Friday at Sonoma Raceway. "I was hoping for years that Amy and I would get married and it just seemed like over this last year, it made more sense to me and that the timing was right.

"I think to do it at that particular time, at that moment while we were in that church, may make that moment more memorable for her. Every other spot that I could think of just didn't measure up, you know? It just wasn't good enough or special enough for her."

Earnhardt had been leaning toward proposing in the church, located in tiny Illesheim, but his decision was sealed when he visited archives in Speyer and held a book filled with handwritten records. The documentation of births, deaths and baptisms included the name of his 10th grandfather, Hamman Ehrenhart (the family name was changed to Earnhardt after arrival in the United States) and proved his family once prayed in that very church.

Reimann was "blown away" by the proposal, Earnhardt said.

"She certainly didn't have an idea that was going to happen, I don't think," he added.

Now that he plans to get married for the first time, the 40-year-old Earnhardt said he hoped to have children sometime soon after.

"I think the greatest accomplishment in life is to be able to raise a child," he said. "That would be awesome. I have felt that way for a long time, but it's just a timing thing — you have to get married first and find that person that you want to spend the rest of your life with.

"(Fatherhood) is definitely in the future. She wants to have kids and I've always kind of wanted to have kids. That is definitely something we will be looking at."

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PHOTOS: Behind the wheel with Dale Earnhardt Jr.