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History in the Making: DALE EARNHARDT
By Michael Smith
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Let’s face it; there is no good way to start this article. I’m a student of history who just happens to enjoy NASCAR racing. I’m certainly not a professional writer and many more able scribes have attempted to put Daytona’s tragic finale into perspective, tried to help us fathom the loss and remind us what a huge force Dale Earnhardt was in the world.
I cannot really write a history lesson about Dale Earnhardt because, frankly, he is NASCAR. Sure, the sun rose on Monday morning after the Daytona 500, and the phones and lights at NASCAR headquarters continued to function, but there is a big piece of the puzzle missing and it’s too soon to begin relegating The Intimidator to a dusty stack of statistics and verbose superlatives. This is not to take away from anything I’ve said or written about other subjects of NASCAR History 101 articles: Junior Johnson, Joe Weatherly, Fireball Roberts, they aren’t moldering has-beens simply because they make good subject matter for the study of this sport we all love so much. On the contrary, the icons of our chosen sport, living or dead, have transcended even their own existence and they serve to tie us back to stockcar racing’s origins. Kyle Petty recently bemoaned the fact that too many newer NASCAR fans know too little about NASCAR history, its beginning as a regional sport, or its early superstars. Kyle’s admonition not withstanding, it’s too early to have to speak that way about Dale Earnhardt. The pain of loss is too fresh and too real.
So, this isn’t a study of NASCAR history, but a prediction of what other, better writers will talk about in years to come whenever the subject is Dale Earnhardt. Forgive me the odd error or omission and allow me the occasional editorial comment if you will.
Ralph Dale Earnhardt was born in April of 1951, and grew up in Kannapolis, North Carolina. From his earliest days, Dale was surrounded by the sites and sounds of racing. Dale’s father Ralph was a rough and tumble stockcar racer in his own right whose circle of acquaintances included other drivers whose names are now legend: Ned Jarrett, Bobby Isaac as well as others. Ralph Earnhardt claimed the Sportsman Division championship when Dale was five years old.
It is no surprise then that Dale would suffer the racer’s fever. He studied under his father, learning how to set up racecars, and how to make them behave on Saturday night down at the dirt track. The father-son relationship was strained, as is often the case. Dale’s decision to drop out of school while in the ninth grade became an especially sore spot between the two, nearly ruining their relationship by some accounts.
Through all this, the two continued to work together on racecars, with the elder Earnhardt building engines while young Dale handled the chassis work. In his second year on the local circuit, Dale amassed an incredible 26 victories and notched even more the following season. Sadly, the success was to be short-lived. When Dale was just 19 years old, his father died of a heart attack while working on a racecar. Dale was left with little direction in his life and not much of a clue where to turn.
In the years that followed, Dale struggled to survive. The pantry was often bare and Dale supported a wife and two children with work installing insulation, doing mechanic work and anything else that offered the promise of a paycheck to stave off the poverty that lurked so close about.
Despite the struggles, the racing bug could not be denied and before long, Dale had forsaken the work force to race full time. The result, two divorces and continued near-starvation. And yet, Winston Cup racing came tantalizingly close on a number of occasions with one- and two-race deals driving for owners whose names are virtually meaningless to new NASCAR fans: Ed Negre, Will Cronkite, Henley Gray and Johnny Ray.
Dale’s Winston Cup debut came in 1975 when he notched a single start, and collected $2,425. In 1976, Dale Earnhardt drove two races, one of which saw the young driver involved in a frightening crash. On lap 260 of a 328-lap event in Atlanta, Earnhardt collided with Dick Brooks and Earnhardt’s car was propelled into a violent cartwheel crash that produced only minor injuries.
During the next couple of years Dale continued to operate on the fringes of Winston Cup racing, squirreling away any spare money to buy parts from the likes of Digard Racing and Junior Johnson. Additionally, Dale haunted Rod Osterlund’s race shop, coaxing the general manager into casual conversation. Dale’s persistence paid dividends when he was given a car to race as a teammate to Osterlund’s original driver Dave Marcis. In his first start in an Osterlund car, Dale notched a fourth place finish and with five starts for the season he accounted for almost $21,000 in earnings.
Not surprisingly, Rod Osterlund pegged Dale to drive full time the following season. In that 1979 season Dale raced in 27 events, earned 4 pole positions, one win and a slew of top 10’s on his way to claiming that year’s Rookie of the Year title. For most folks, that would have been considered a watershed season, but not for Dale Earnhardt.
The following year, in a feat that has never been matched, Dale Earnhardt seized the NASCAR Winston Cup championship, thus paying back Rod Osterlund for taking a chance on him. On his way to the first place finish, Dale beat out the likes of Cale Yarborough, Benny Parsons, Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison who finished second through sixth respectively. It is interesting to note that the top six finishers that season all were either previous champions, or they would go on to claim championships later.
Business is business unfortunately. In 1981 Rod Osterlund sold the team without notice to either crew or driver. Perhaps disillusioned, Dale quit the team in May of that year to take a seat vacated by Richard Childress. In that initial pairing, Earnhardt and Childress showed some flashes of promise but Childress eventually convinced Dale to seek greener pastures with another team.
Accordingly, Dale drove two seasons with Bud Moore (1982 and 1983, during which time Ricky Rudd filled the driver’s seat at Childress racing). In his time with Moore, Dale Earnhardt garnered three wins, and then in 1984 he returned to the Childress stable.
Since their reunion in 1984, Earnhardt and Childress have essentially been a powerhouse dynasty in the sport of stockcar racing. Earnhardt amassed an additional six Winston Cup Championships in his time with Richard Childress, bringing his total to 7, which will forever tie him with the legendary Richard Petty. But more importantly, in the course of seasons, Earnhardt somehow became NASCAR in a way that perhaps only Richard Petty had done before him. Along the way there were penalties and controversies, most notably at Bristol where the vege-matic blender style of bump and pass seemed to suit Earnhardt’s hand’s-on style of racing, but also at the restrictor plate tracks like Daytona where Dale topped all current and past drivers in victories.
Sadly, it is also at Daytona that our story ends, for now. Dale Earnhardt, “The Intimidator” will continue to make his mark in this sport that he dominated so well. Perhaps we will first see the stirrings of his spirit in the sport when, in response to his death, new safety innovations (not necessarily the HANS device, but perhaps something very much like it) move to the fore and are accepted by all teams and drivers. Joe Weatherly and Fireball Roberts left us suddenly in 1964 and, partly as a result of their deaths, our sport saw new safety technology, most notably the window safety nets and the protective fuel cell.
There is an ugly side of our sport that tends to snatch life away from those it has seemingly given so much, and often right before our eyes in an event that “didn’t look that bad.” There is also an ugly side of our society that makes people who never followed the sport of stockcar racing think they can jump on the bandwagon to make proclamations about our sport and to pass judgment about how things ought to be. I speak primarily of members of the media who wouldn’t normally be caught dead at a racetrack, but who now feel the need to speak at great length about what is “wrong” with NASCAR.
Dale Earnhardt is gone and that is truly a tragedy. His fans, and those who respected him will attempt to make sense of his loss and some will succeed, while others will never understand. This hasn’t been a history of Dale Earnhardt. Dale Earnhardt hasn’t made his final impact on the sport of stockcar racing yet, and I suspect it will be a very long time before that happens, consequently, this isn’t “history.” Perhaps what I have here is hagiography, I’ll let you judge.
copyright 2000. Michael Smith
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