Remember when J. Cole name dropped NASCAR  driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. during his latest album’s outro? Who knew that the two hadn’t yet cross paths until appearing on the same set to shoot ESPN Magazine’s February issue.

“It all started when I missed the deadline for the physical CD album credits, so I decided to put them on a song and basically shout out everybody who had something to do with the album,” Cole explained. “I’d been working on the album for a year, and I was in such an ecstatic mood — I felt like I won. So while I’m shouting out everybody, I was like, ‘I may as well pretend a shoutout, somebody I have no idea who they are, just as a joke.'”

Apparently the two were destined to meet, Dale told the magazine that before shifting his gears in drive he actually listens to Cole’s “Power Trip.”

“‘Power Trip’ was coming up on my Pandora station a lot,” Dale explained. “I heard he had a new album, and it started popping up on my Twitter timeline that there was this shoutout. I was like, “Oh shit, what’s happening here?” So I went and listened to it, and it was funny as hell! So I tweeted to him, “Man, that shit’s funny!” And he retweeted it and thought it was cool.”

Read the full exchange over at ESPN.