The Earnhardt Legacy, The Story Goes On...

At the onset of the 2006 NASCAR racing season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had become one of the most recognized people in America. He was and remains the face of NASCAR. He was a pitch man for all kinds of products. His name and likeness alone were worth millions of dollars and yet there were rumors that all wasn’t well at Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated (DEI) where he was the top driver.

By the end of the 2006 racing season young Dale had been to victory lane 17 times as a Cup driver. He had a 3rd place finish in the Cup standings in 2003 and ran the best season of his career during 2004. He appeared poised to make a final push for the title. In 2005 things went backwards and three different crew chiefs were used on the Budweiser car, the last being Dale’s Cousin Tony Eury Jr. With Tony on the box the team got it turned around late, but finished 19th and out of the Chase. A concerted effort in 2006 saw Dale Jr. back in the Chase but he finished up a disappointing 5th at the end.

While Junior and the number 8 race team struggled, DEI, under the total control of Teresa Earnhardt, was pulling down more money than ever before. It was estimated that the company was averaging an annual income between $60 and $80 million. Half of this revenue came from the sales of Dale Earnhardt merchandise and licensing. The other half was being generated by the DEI racing teams and related business operations. In what many believe was a pure and simple tax avoidance move, Dale Sr. left DEI to Teresa alone. Whether anything was ever said that would indicate that the children should share in the company’s ownership at a later date is unknown.

JR Motorsports came into being in 1998 as a management company overseeing the licensing and merchandising of Dale Earnhardt Junior products. Junior’s success in the Busch series, winning back to back championships in 1998-99, pushed this venture’s income ever upward. Shortly after the tragedy at Daytona in 2001, Junior made a change at JR Motorsports that would have far reaching ramifications when he agreed with his sister Kelley and made her President and General Manager as well as giving her fifty percent ownership. Under her guidance, JR Motorsports became a full-fledged racing business when it fielded a late model stock car team in 2002. Just like his father before him, Junior had become a race team owner while personally driving for someone else. JR Motorsports continued to evolve under Kelley’s management. In 2003 she negotiated the first driving contract her brother ever had with DEI. In the past he’d just worked on a handshake. Teresa pushed for a lifetime driving contract but that wasn’t going to happen. The two parties agreed to a 5 year deal that would run out at the end of 2007. In 2006 plans were laid to put a Busch series team, sponsored by the U.S. Navy, into full-time operation along with three late model stock car teams. JR Motorsports was growing.

As DEI’s revenues skyrocketed Teresa Earnhardt remained in the background. She hired others to run the various businesses. At first her absence was deemed understandable, but as time went by, these unusual circumstances for a high-profile NASCAR race team owner led to questions being raised by the people making things happen in the shops and at the track. It was no secret that Kelley and Dale Jr. weren’t always on the best of terms with their step-mother anyway, but the lack of winning a Cup title and Teresa’s lack of leadership in the company must have led them to seek an ownership share. Then, in December of 2006, Teresa granted an interview to the Wall Street Journal in which she questioned Dale Jr.’s maturity and commitment to winning. Although Jr. remained publicly civil toward Teresa, a break in their business relationship had been set in motion. Jr. let it be known that he wanted controlling interest in DEI. There were negotiations between Kelley, Dale Jr. and Teresa’s president of global operations for Dale Earnhardt Inc., Max Siegel that carried on through early 2007, but the bottom line was the fact that Teresa held most of the cards. She was not going to relinquish control of DEI.

May 11, 2007 Kelley and Dale Jr. sat in front of a bank of media types and announced that Dale Jr. would become a free agent at the end of the 2007 racing season. Jr. was 32 years old at the time and he made it clear that was how old his father was when he made his last career move and joined up with Richard Childress. Next came the fiasco over Jr. keeping the number 8. Both his father and grandfather had raced that number, but Teresa wouldn’t budge on that either.

Just over a month after the end of Jr.’s business relationship with DEI was known, Dale Jr. announced that beginning in 2008 he would be driving for Hendrick Motorsports (HMS). So out of what many thought was a family breakup, Dale Jr. and Kelley were in effect moving from their father’s side of the family to their mother’s. Brenda Gee Jackson’s father was a well-known body man who worked for Rick Hendrick’s father at the beginning of HMS. Brenda’s brothers were connected to HMS as well. Beyond the family connections, another benefit was in the offing on a much more personal level. Rick had lost his son Ricky in a plane crash three years earlier. Jr. needed a father figure and Rick could embrace a new son…

In time it was also announced that JR Motorsports and HMS had formed a partnership with neither losing their business identity. The new team would race in the Busch/Nationwide Series. Everything looked great!

On the other hand, DEI without their top driver was left without a rudder. By the end of the 2008 season the company for all intents and purposes was out of fielding race teams as it merged its driving operations into Chip Ganassi Racing to form Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. Although Earnhardt was the lead name, it was understood that Ganassi and his people would run the show. DEI was left with memorabilia sales and putting together tributes to Dale Earnhardt's name. What Teresa was willing to do spoke volumes about her relationship with Kelley and Dale Jr.

Driving for the top team in NASCAR, surrounded by the best drivers, technical engineers and top pit personnel, everyone was sure Dale would positively respond, but midway through the third year of their arrangement in 2010 things just haven’t meshed. Tony Eury Jr. had come along with Dale as his crew chief from DEI, but that got changed halfway through the 2009 season and still the wins weren’t coming. Jr. has had his moments with HMS, but there’s been no consistency, all while Junior Nation grows more and more restless.

Since Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s death NASCAR has been in the throes of a slow decline. Track attendance has gone down along with television ratings. Sponsors began backing away and then the current economic woes hit. In a “town hall” meeting in which NASCAR officials asked the team owners and drivers to try and think of things that might help right the sport’s problems, one well-known driver piped up, “You've got to make the most popular driver in the sport competitive”. And all eyes turned toward Dale Earnhardt Jr. The pressure to succeed must be tremendous.

Last April an announcement was made in which JR Motorsports’ owners, Dale Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt, Richard Childress Racing’s (RCR) owner Richard Childress and the owner of Dale Earnhardt, Inc., Teresa Earnhardt all came together. They announced that Jr. would be driving a Chevrolet Impala sponsored by Wrangler Jeans and adorned with the famous number 3 on loan from RCR to honor Dale Earnhardt and his induction with the inaugural class into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The car will be driven in the Nationwide Series’ Subway Jalapeno 250 event at Daytona International Speedway on this Friday night, July 2nd.

Disappointing to many Earnhardt fans, Jr. was quoted in a recent ESPN interview, "I just want to go to the racetrack and run it once before I retire, and this will probably be it. After this, I'll probably never drive a car with a 3 on it again. I can pretty much say I'm 99 percent sure that will never happen again."

Has Dale Earnhardt Jr. ever raced just for the joy of it? It seems he’s always been trying to please everyone but himself. Maybe this ride will do it.

Take a look at Jr. truly enjoying himself…


If I could personally speak to the man I think I’d tell him to forget everything else. Just go out Friday night and drive like a demon… Earnhardt style.

This story is by no means over. A fourth generation of Earnhardts are coming along and who knows, maybe one of them will again make sweet music in a race car...

Kerry, Kelley, Taylor, Teresa and Dale Jr.

at the NASCAR Hall of Fame Inductions

Some of the many resources used to make this trilogy possible:
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