DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. swore his career was over. He was defeated and dejected and depressed, so he strangled a bottle of vodka and sank into the couch to swill and sulk. A couple of buddies tagged along, cracked some beers. But they weren’t saying much.
In a moment like this, they didn’t really know what to say, anyway.
The clocked ticked by, and the glasses filled and emptied and refilled.
Suddenly the back door burst open.
“Get the hell off my property!” the fiery silhouette hollered.
Terrified, the boys scurried to the car and throttled down, disappearing in a plume of gravel dust. All except Junior. He just sat there.
It was 1997, and as far as Junior could tell, he was finished before he ever started, the fantastic dream of NASCAR glory replaced by the drab tedium of wrenching on the undercarriage of a soccer mom’s minivan.
He had wrecked that day during Busch Series practice at Charlotte Motor Speedway. His tires were worn out, and, since he and his team had never run at that level on a track that big before, they didn’t know to install new ones before attempting a practice lap in qualifying mode.
They just let the old tires cool off for a moment and went back out for more. Junior instantly crashed. The team didn’t own a backup car, so they loaded up the wreckage and took it to the house. The day was done — and it felt like the future was, too.
Back at the house, the most imposing figure he’d ever known peered over his shoulder: his father, Dale Earnhardt.
Junior was full of fear just then, fear that he’d ruined the family name and disappointed the old man and embarrassed the legend in front of his peers. Big E hated to be ribbed by his buddies, and Junior feared he’d given the gallery some fodder.
“He looked down at me, and he said, ‘What are you doing?'” Junior recalled. “I said, ‘Man! I thought that was it! I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m sitting here thinking I just lost my dream, and I’m not going to race anymore. My dream’s dead! What am I supposed to do? I’m going to work at the dealership my whole life.’
“And he said, ‘Come here.'”
They walked out the back door and sat on the porch. Father and son. Confident legend and concerned namesake. And there they sat, and had a chat. Senior reassured Junior for an hour and a half.
It wasn’t over.
“That was the only conversation I ever had with my dad about life,” Junior said. “He’s like, ‘No. 1, the guys that were helping you at the track, they’re over there working on it. You should be over there working on it.’ My initiative should be to be over there and fix it — like, my dream ain’t dead, because I’m going to fix this car and I’m going to race again!
“I learned a lot about how wrong I was to have the decision I made to pout and be sad. That was the complete opposite of what I should have done! I was embarrassed that I wrecked that car, but he was reassuring me that if I show determination, willpower and do the right thing, that I would have more opportunities.”
For Earnhardt, that willpower and determination was standard operating procedure, on display all day, every day. He was the show-me-don’t-tell-me type, and so many life lessons were imparted to Junior in real time, by example, without a word.
“He had 250 acres, 300 acres, and if there was a bulldozer to be drove, he was driving it,” Junior said. “So he’s out there every day working on the land, bulldozing and carrying on, and he pushed this tree over, and a root kicked the bulldozer over, flipped the bulldozer over on its side. I’m thinking, ‘We’re done bulldozing today. You’re damn lucky you didn’t get hurt.’
“He’s like, ‘Jump in the truck! Drive me to the barn over there! I’m going to get the other tractor, come back and flip it over. We got to do this fast. We’ve got gas leaking; the engine’s upside down. We got to go! Come on!’
“So we drive to the barn, he jumps on the other tractor, drives it back over there through 400, 500 yards, flips the bulldozer back over, jumps on it, cranks it, gets it running again and goes back to work.”
Heavy machinery wasn’t Earnhardt’s only weapon. In 1982, in his third Winston Cup season, Earnhardt had a friend who hoped to build a new back porch on his home. But there happened to be a big tree blocking the way.
No matter. Earnhardt grabbed a chain saw, scaled the tree and went to work. Naturally.
“I don’t even know how he’s hanging in this tree, but he’s got a chain saw and he’s just cutting this tree down little by little,” Junior said. “He’s climbing all over this thing, dangerous as hell.
“I’m standing down there, scared to death. I’m probably about 8, 9 years old. He comes down out of that tree [after] an hour and a half, and his glove’s sawed open, all the way across the hand.”
Senior had an accident. Enter: don’t panic life lesson.
“He’s like, ‘Ah, I cut my hand open. We got to go get this fixed,'” Junior said, laughing. “And he didn’t haul butt out of that tree. [He said,] ‘I done it in the first 10 minutes I was up there.’ Can you believe that!? Crazy! So, that was a hell of a thing as a kid.
“Like OK, that’s the reaction you’re supposed to have when you get in a situation like that. He finishes his job — it’s not bleeding to death. So, that was one example of, wow, this guy’s something different, a different kind of breed.”
Junior says one race in particular best exemplified his father’s dogged unwillingness to settle — The Winston: 1987.
His explanation comes from the mouth of a 41-year-old man, and the nostalgic bliss of the 12-year-old boy who watched in sheer awe.
“I’ve watched that over and over, even still today,” Junior said. “Bill Elliott’s car was incredible, and Bill was very determined to win that race. He should have won that race. He was head and shoulders above anyone else speedwise, handling. If you watch those last 10 laps, there were so many opportunities for Dad to say, ‘Eh, he’s got me.’
“But he cut [Elliott] off, he forced himself into places that Bill had to make a decision to back off or not. I mean, he did everything in the book, good and bad, to win that race. And it’s incredible. That 10 laps right there encompasses his whole mentality as a race car driver, and I think as a person, in how he was in life. He was willing to do anything, and that is not understated.”
As a youngster, that was difficult to rationalize.
“Still today, it’s really hard to digest that someone would go to those lengths,” Junior continued. “You just don’t see it so much. I was scared to be around him in that moment because that was so inspiring, and everyone was in awe and it was really dramatic. There was a lot of upset people, a lot of happy people, a lot of controversy. But he was so powerful.
“I was like, golly, this guy. I don’t even know you. Who are you? This guy’s like a superhero.”
Millions feel that way, even still. When Earnhardt died in the final turn of the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, it left a void that has yet to be filled. Many longtime fans will tell you the sport changed instantly — and it’s never been the same since.
“It’s hard for me to understand that, hard for me to measure it,” Junior said. “Because when he died, the reaction that I saw from that, through television and from the fans, blew me away. I had no idea that he had that far of a reach. And still the fact that people still have that emotion, still miss him and still think about him the way they do as if he was still here, that blows me away, man.”
Junior likes it that way. He doesn’t want his father’s influence and legacy to be forgotten.
“I don’t want people to forget what he was and what he meant,” he said. “I don’t want it to get faded, deluded, contorted. Because I’m so proud of him, and I’m proud of who he was.
“If I never do another thing in this sport, what matters to me is that his legacy is what it is, and that it stays that way. I’ve been lucky. I’m still here, and I’m still winning, and racing, and having fun, and getting to add a little bit to that legacy, which is great. But above all, above anything I do or anything that I mean to anyone, I would love to just preserve his legacy and that people would always celebrate him, that the sport will continue to celebrate him.
“If I’m forgotten, fine, as long as everything he is, is always there. I’m just as proud, and happy, and emotional, and excited about it as all those people back in Kannapolis [North Carolina], as anybody that knew him. That’s the valuable piece. That’s a valuable brick in the foundation of this sport that I hope never changes.”
