The Earnhardt Legacy

Following the 2000 racing year Dale Earnhardt must have finally felt a measure of peace. After 18 years, his third marriage had turned out to be the one to last. Out of this marriage he and wife Teresa had a daughter, Taylor, who by this time was still in
those wondrous, joy filled pre-teen years. Dale had found and nurtured a relationship with his older son Kerry and for the first time he was growing close to Dale Jr. Of Dale’s four children, it was daughter Kelley that he just couldn’t get next to. She was once divorced, ready to marry for a second time and Dale didn’t care for the choices she was making. A wedge had been driven between the two who barely spoke to one another. If Dale had just taken a deep breath and stood back to look at how his oldest daughter was turning out he might have realized that of all his children, she was the one most like him. When Dale’s friends saw Kerry, Dale Jr. and Kelley drive in short track competitions in the early 1990’s they told him that it was Kelley’s style that most closely resembled her father’s. She was a fierce competitor that hated to lose. In retrospect, Kelley wondered if she could have been a top driver, but without her dad’s support, she and the rest of us will never know. Dale Sr. may have been right; the timing for a woman driver in NASCAR wasn’t good at that time. (It’s something Kelley has since thought about while getting to know Danica Patrick.) Kelley had a hard time accepting her father’s advice just like Dale Sr. did with his father. And hadn’t Dale been married more than once at an early age just like Kelley was ready to do? In the years to come, Kelley’s many mannerisms including the toughness she inherited from her father will become more and more apparent. Those inherited Earnhardt qualities will serve her well.

It was back in 1982 when Kelley, ten years old at the time, and young Dale, at eight, moved from their mother’s care to live with Dale and Teresa.

During those formative years, Kelley and young Dale were constantly left in the care of others while their famous father took his young wife and plied his trade around the country. Beyond hardly being home, Dale, just like his father before him, was a demanding man, not outwardly encouraging or affectionate. This wore on his youngest son. When his father was around, Junior would pull stunts, things he knew he shouldn’t have done, just to get his dad’s attention. When he was successful he got what he was after, for all the wrong reasons. Kelley acted as the shield between her father and brother, many times ending up comforting Junior when things went badly. Out of this Kelley and Junior formed a bond that will probably last the rest of their lives.

Dale’s business interests were doing well. Beyond the new car dealership and other investments, Dale and Teresa’s race teams with Dale Earnhardt, Incorporated (DEI) were enjoying great success. Dale Jr. had just completed his first full season of Cup driving in the red number 8 Budweiser Chevrolet. DEI also ran the number 1 car in Cup racing driven by Steve Park who finished the season 11th in the point standings. The company operated one Busch Series car in 2000. The number 15 driven by Ron Hornaday placed 8th in Busch Series standings. The 15 team was being prepared to transition into the Cup Series for the 2001 season.

As far as Dale’s racing was concerned, he was still driving for long-time friend and owner Richard Childress and finding victory lane. He’d just completed a season in which he came in second in the Cup standings for the second time since winning his 7th Championship. He had won the most single season earnings of his career at nearly $5 million. Entering his 27th season of Cup racing, Dale planned to run another full schedule in 2001, still looking for that elusive 8th Cup Championship that would set him apart from all other NASCAR drivers.

The business of NASCAR had dramatically changed since Dale entered the “The Show” in 1975. An excellent illustration of this is made just by looking at the earnings differences. In 1979 Richard Petty won his 7th and final Cup Championship. He earned the highest payout to date by any driver for a single season, accumulating $560,000. Fifteen years later in 1994, Dale Earnhardt tied Petty’s record with his 7th Cup Title and earned just over $3.3 million or nearly six times as much, but that was only part of the picture. NASCAR, being the grand champion of all sports when it comes to sponsorship and endorsement money, saw revenue dollars grow by leaps and bounds in those facets of the business. With national television coverage becoming the norm, pumping large sums of money into the mix, fan popularity had exploded. Everybody wanted a piece of the action and the “Intimidator” played a huge role in all of that.

While driving Cup cars, Dale Earnhardt was never voted the most popular driver by his peers. His slashing, bumping, grinding, hate to lose style did nothing to endear him to his competitors, but racing fans ate it up. Dale Earnhardt during the 1990’s was the straw that stirred NASCAR’s drink. In racing fans’ eyes, he became the most popular driver the sport had ever seen. He had legions of followers. People upon meeting Dale for the first time merely stood in awe of his presence. It was in this type of environment that Dale Earnhardt went to NASCAR’s premier event, the Daytona 500, and strapped himself into the black number 3, February 18, 2001.

On the last lap of the last race Dale Earnhardt would ever run, he watched as two of his own DEI cars were running in first and second position while he ran in third without a chance of catching either.

The early years of Dale Earnhardt’s racing career have been well chronicled. How he struggled just to make grocery money while keeping his cars running, trying to impress the right people until that first good break finally came his way and how his personal relationships suffered. Once he’d made it, Dale was known to quietly help out other less fortunate drivers struggling with the same problems he’d faced. And so it was truly fitting that leading late in the 2001 Daytona 500 was a DEI car being driven by a man to whom Dale had given another chance, long-time also ran Michael Waltrip driving the number 15 NAPA Chevrolet. Ironically, Michael’s older brother Darrell Waltrip was one of Dale’s fiercest competitors early in his Cup racing career. In fact many would say the bad blood between Dale and Darrell had never really gone away, yet Dale had helped out Michael and here he was, making the most of Dale’s generosity. The second place DEI car was the red Budweiser number 8 driven by Dale’s son and namesake, Ralph Dale Earnhardt, Junior. Dale must have had a smile on his face watching those two dig for the finish line as he entered turn four.

Since the days when people first began racing motorized vehicles there has always been the chance of wrecking. Along with that came the possibility that the drivers could be injured or worse. Since its inception, NASCAR has been forced to suffer through the loss of too many drivers. The people involved in the sport know death as a very likely reality that no one is immune to. The unspoken thought of it is always there in the back of everyone’s mind. Nobody knows when it will strike.

On one of auto racing’s biggest stages, one of auto racing’s most famous drivers was lost. Upon hearing the news of Dale Earnhardt’s demise, the whole country was stunned. An American Icon had been instantly taken from us. The NASCAR family, that just nine months earlier had lost young Adam Petty, was shaken to its very core.

This has been the second of a three part series...