The greatest icon in NASCAR history and one of its greatest drivers, Dale Earnhardt, the son of 1956 Sportsman champion Ralph Earnhardt, drove stock cars on local short tracks in the southeast before entering the higher levels of stock car racing in the late 1970s. He made his Winston Cup debut in 1975 at the World 600 at Charlotte, where he finished 22nd. He became one of the top NASCAR Winston Cup prospects after having an energizing duel with Bobby Allison in 1978 at a Sportsman race. Also in 1978, he made 5 Winston Cup starts, scoring a top five and two top tens. In 1979, he declared his candidacy for Rookie of the Year, driving the Rod Osterlund-owned car with which Dave Marcis finished fifth in the points in 1978. The 1979 rookie class is regarded as one of the greatest in NASCAR history, as Earnhardt faced stiff competition from Terry Labonte, Harry Gant, and the now mostly-forgotten Joe Millikan. Earnhardt, Labonte, and Millikan all finished in the top ten in points, with Earnhardt finishing seventh in points, despite missing four races due to an injury at Pocono. Earnhardt scored his maiden victory at Bristol, becoming the first driver to do so. In 1980, his sophomore season, Earnhardt won the championship, an achievement rarely done in any form of motorsport, and one that has not been repeated in NASCAR's top level since. He led the points standings from the Daytona 500 (then the second race of the season) to the season finale, and scored wins at Atlanta (from 31st place), Bristol, Nashville, Martinsville, and Charlotte. Midway in the season, Earnhardt's crew chief Jake Elder quit the team and was replaced by the prodigious 20 year old Doug Richert. Amazingly, Earnhardt's team did not miss a beat in 1980 and remained competitive after the crew chief change. Cale Yarborough, driving for the legendary Junior Johnson team, posed a serious challenge to Earnhardt with six wins to Earnhardt's five, and eleven poles to Earnhardt's zero. Yarborough was probably more dominant in 1980, but Earnhardt's slightly greater consistency aided his championship drive. Even though Yarborough closed the season with five straight top fives including two wins, Earnhardt won the title in the final race at Ontario, overcoming pitting too early and losing multiple lugnuts in the finale.
Despite upsetting Yarborough and Johnson with a relatively unheralded operation, Earnhardt was not a major championship contender for most of the early '80s. He obtained sponsorship from Wrangler in 1981, but the Osterlund team was still in shambles because Osterlund, a real estate investor, was adversely affected by that year's recession given the high interest rates and low housing expenditures at the time. In order to raise more funds, Osterlund sold the defending championship-winning organization to J.D. Stacy. The volatile Stacy, who attempted to prove that spending lots of money alone would lead to a successful race team, was not a popular figure with many in the NASCAR garage, and after Stacy fired Roland Wlodyka, Earnhardt's team manager, Earnhardt and Wrangler both left the Stacy team, joining the Richard Childress team. Childress, a veteran owner-driver on the Winston Cup circuit, immediately retired once he was able to sign Earnhardt. However, Childress's team was not as strong as it would become, and Earnhardt would not win in the entire 1981 season, becoming the first winless defending champion since Benny Parsons in 1974. Although Earnhardt and Childress would make each other household names in the end, the Childress team was not seriously threatening for wins, and Earnhardt initially wanted to win immediately rather than build a team, and he elected to drive Bud Moore's Fords in 1982 and 1983 after Parsons won three races for Moore in 1981.
Despite Bud Moore's consistent success for many years on the NASCAR circuit, the Earnhardt/Moore partnership was not as successful as expected. Earnhardt won only once at Darlington and had massively unreliable equipment, scoring DNFs in the last eight races in 1982, dropping him to 12th in points, tied for the lowest points finish in his full-time career. One factor is that Moore was running Fords while Buicks had the overwhelming advantage in NASCAR that year. Earnhardt also continued to compete in the Sportsman division (later the Busch Grand National Series and today the Nationwide Series), and won the first race after it became the Budweiser Late Model Sportsman division (usually cited as the first Busch Series win). He would enter his own cars in the Busch Series through the 1994 season. In 1983, Buick's advantage subsided as the dominant Darrell Waltrip/Junior Johnson and Bobby Allison/DiGard teams both switched from Buick to Chevy. Ford, however, was still behind the eight-ball as Earnhardt only won twice and finished 8th in points. Many at this point erroneously considered Earnhardt to be a one-year wonder in NASCAR.
After Earnhardt's stint with Bud Moore did not work out as well as either had hoped, Earnhardt returned to the Richard Childress Racing #3 Chevy team, where he would drive for the rest of his career. RCR had won its first two races in 1983 with Ricky Rudd, who replaced Earnhardt in 1982 and 1983. The two swapped rides, with Bud Moore hiring Rudd. Although Earnhardt was not satisfied with the Moore team, Wrangler sponsored both the Earnhardt and Rudd cars as it wished to also continue its relationship with Bud Moore. RCR had a three-year plan to build its team to be a year-in, year-out title contender. In 1984, they would focus on their superspeedway package, and Earnhardt scored two superspeedway wins. In 1985, they would focus on short tracks, and Earnhardt won four short track races, although he began to gain a reputation as one of the dirtiest drivers on the circuit as he knocked Tim Richmond out of the way to win at Bristol and Richmond, among other such incidents. In 1986, the RCR team was now ready to be a threat on every track, and Earnhardt returned to the top of the stock car heap, a position he would rarely relinquish until Jeff Gordon's first championship in 1995. He had his first major shot to win the Daytona 500 in 1986, but ran out of gas while running second directly behind Geoff Bodine. The next week at Richmond, he caused the most notorious wreck of his career. Earnhardt had dominated the race, but Waltrip made an attempt to pass with three laps to go and dove underneath Earnhardt. Earnhardt then tapped Waltrip's rear bumper, spinning him, and wrecking himself, Waltrip, Bobby Allison, and Joe Ruttman. Kyle Petty, who managed to avoid the wreck, suddenly claimed his first career victory. Waltrip called for Earnhardt to be suspended, but ultimately he was only fined (he had greater penalties which were eventually cancelled in appeal). Despite this controversy, Earnhardt had a stellar season, winning five races to claim his second championship by showing more consistency than Richmond, the top winner on the circuit. He earned his first World 600 win in 1986, probably his biggest win of the year.
Building on the success Earnhardt and Childress had in 1986, they dominated the circuit in 1987, with Earnhardt winning eleven times, leading over 3000 laps, and winning the title over Bill Elliott by nearly 500 points. Elliott dominated the Daytona 500 from the pole, but the next couple months were all Earnhardt. He won back-to-back races at Rockingham and Richmond, dominated at Atlanta until having battery problems while leading, then won four straight races at Darlington, North Wilkesboro, Bristol, and Martinsville. He became the first driver to win four consecutive races since Waltrip in 1981, and he earned his first Southern 500 win. However, typically, despite this success, his season did not come without controversy. He spun Harry Gant at Richmond while battling for second, prompting Gant to say that Earnhardt was as "blind as a bat". He next spun leaderSterling Marlin at Bristol, where NASCAR threatened to stop scoring him if he spun anyone else. Earnhardt felt this was unfair, because he argued drivers were supposed to be aggressive on short tracks. Arguably the most famous example of Earnhardt aggression came in 1987 at the Winston All-Star race when Elliott tagged his rear bumper. When Elliott attempted to make the pass, Earnhardt blocked him so aggressively that he was ultimately forced to drive through the grass to maintain the lead, which he successfully achieved. Curiously, this maneuver became known as the "Pass in the Grass" despite Earnhardt never losing the lead. Elliott moved to the outside of Earnhardt to attempt to make the pass, but Earnhardt hit him while they were side-by-side hard enough to cause Elliott to blow a tire. Elliott was so furious that he uncharacteristically slammed into Earnhardt's rear bumper while Earnhardt was taking a victory lap. To many, Earnhardt's win-at-all-costs style and rural demeanor (such as interests in farming, hunting, and fishing) represented the soul of NASCAR and made him extremely popular with Southern audiences, as he was seen as a throwback to drivers of old, especially as later drivers such as Gordon had a more politically-correct image. To many others, however, Earnhardt was seen as lacking the class of other competitors such as Elliott and Labonte. He became one of the most divisive and talked about drivers in the sport, and became known as the "Intimidator" at about this time.
In 1988, Earnhardt's long-time sponsor Wrangler was replaced by GM Goodwrench with a black and white paint scheme that would become synonymous with Earnhardt's #3 car. He would remain GM's official factory-backed driver in NASCAR until his death, but in his later years, GM gradually switched its focus to Gordon's #24 Hendrick Chevy. Earnhardt only won three times in 1988, dropping to third in points, as Elliott and Rusty Wallace dominated the season. However, he was still a consistent frontrunner nonetheless. The following year, Elliott fell off somewhat and Earnhardt and Wallace were the main combatants for the title. Earnhardt led the standings for most of the season, but a last-place finish at Charlotte gave Wallace the points lead. He was poised to retake the points lead after dominating at North Wilkesboro, but he and Rudd had a synchronized spin on the final lap that gave Bodine the win and allowed Wallace to finish ahead of Earnhardt, which effectively led to Wallace's championship, as he would only win by twelve points.
After such a bitterly close defeat, Earnhardt and Childress were fiercely motivated in the early '90s, ultimately winning four of the next five titles and becoming the powerhouse on the NASCAR circuit. The #3 team won nine races in 1990, far more than anyone else, and dominated the season in general. However, first-time title contender Mark Martin was considerably more consistent and gave Earnhardt a stout challenge, forcing the #3 team to come from behind as Martin led the points for most of the year (albeit narrowly). Earnhardt was as usual a strong contender everywhere, but in the 1990s, he added a new specialty to his repertoire, restrictor plate racing. Restrictor plates had been mandated in 1988 after Bobby Allison's horrific airborne crash at Talladega in 1987, to prevent cars from going airborne. Although that did not prove successful, Earnhardt and Childress ultimately adapted better to plate racing than anyone else, and he became the plate-track driver to beat, winning three of the four plate races in 1990, and only losing the Daytona 500 to underdog Derrike Cope after cutting a tire on the last lap. In the early '90s, Earnhardt dominated plate races of all varieties, winning seven races at Talladega in the '90s, winning all ten Twin 125 qualifying races at Daytona from 1990 to 1999, five straight Busch Series Daytona races, as well as three Busch Clashes at Daytona; however, despite being a consistent threat at Daytona in the 1990s and winning more races there than any other driver, he was unable to win the Daytona 500, and his winless streak in this race despite being a consistent contender attracted widespread attention starting about this time. In 1990, Earnhardt caught a huge break when he was not penalized at Charlotte when the Childress crew ran on the track to change Earnhardt's tires which had fallen off as he drove onto the racetrack after a pit stop. This was a rare fumble for Earnhardt's outstanding pit crew which was nicknamed the "Flying Aces" and led by legendary crew chief Kirk Shelmerdine. Nonetheless, Martin also struggled at Charlotte and could not capitalize and take a large lead over Earnhardt in the points. Earnhardt retook the points lead with a win at Phoenix while Martin was mediocre, and after beating Martin at the finale at Atlanta, became only the second four-time champion after Richard Petty. Earnhardt repeated in 1991, winning four races and solidly leading the points more due to consistency than outright dominance, as Davey Allison and Harry Gant were the dominant drivers that season, winning five times each. There was general parity among the teams that year, and nobody was really as dominant as some years past. He had a few brilliant moments, including the Busch Clash, where he drove from sixth to first in just over a lap, then when the field was inverted, he drove from 14th to first in just over a lap. In the Daytona 500 itself, however, he was passed byErnie Irvan late in the race and then spun out due to tire wear caused by NASCAR's decision to not let drivers pit for tires under caution after Elliott's tire changer Mike Rich was killed at Atlanta the previous season. 1992 was mostly a lost cause for Earnhardt. The Fords of Davey Allison, Elliott, and Alan Kulwicki dominated the points chase, and Chevrolet teams such as Childress and Hendrick were generally left behind. Earnhardt struggled with reliability and only finished 12th in points, the only time he finished outside the top ten in points between 1982 and 2000. He only won one race at Charlotte, the first win for Chevrolet in the year, but it did not come without controversy, as second and third place finishers Irvan and Kyle Petty accused Earnhardt of speeding in the pits on the final pit stop as he entered the pits third and came out three seconds ahead of Irvan, despite posting a similar pit stop time. After the 1992 season, Shelmerdine left the Earnhardt team to become a driver himself, and was replaced by Andy Petree.
Earnhardt and Childress recovered from a mediocre 1992 by returning to the front of the grid for the next two seasons. Earnhardt's main challenger in 1993 was Wallace, now driving for the Roger Penske operation. Wallace won ten races and dominated in terms of laps led, but Earnhardt while slightly less dominant was much more consistent, winning the title with six wins. Earnhardt lost Daytona yet again, as Dale Jarrett passed him on the last lap. Wallace won three straight races at Bristol, North Wilkesboro, and Martinsville early in the season to take the points lead. At Talladega, Earnhardt dominated, but NASCAR decided to restart the near-finished race after a rain delay leading to a two-lap sprint to complete the race distance. Irvan blew past Earnhardt, who was left out to dry and fell to 8th. Earnhardt, desperate to move back to the front, sliced through the pack very aggressively on the last lap, ultimately spinning Wallace. Wallace went through a terrifying series of barrelrolls crossing the finish line in sixth, while Earnhardt finished fourth. Earnhardt and Wallace were close friends, and Earnhardt was very concerned, as he drove by on the cooldown lap to check on Wallace, but Wallace did not blame him for the incident and they remained friends. Wallace actually maintained the points lead, but he was hurt, and then struggled with reliability the following weeks, leading to Earnhardt accruing a massive lead. Wallace dominated the late season winning five of the last eight races, but it was not enough as Earnhardt claimed the title by eighty points. In one of the most touching moments of his career, Wallace won the season finale at Atlanta while Earnhardt won the title. Earnhardt carried a Davey Allison flag, while Wallace carrying an Alan Kulwicki flag, both driving a "Polish Victory Lap" side-by-side at the end of the race in honor of the two top drivers who died in plane crashes in 1993. Despite his reputation as an aggressive driver, moments such as these and many others explain why Earnhardt was generally respected off-track. After winning three of the past four championships, Earnhardt was heavily favored to win his record-tying seventh championship in 1994, but he correctly predicted that Wallace, Martin, and Irvan would be his major challengers. As it turns out, Irvan was the only serious championship threat, and he traded the points lead back and forth with Earnhardt. Irvan and Earnhardt each won three of the first ten races, but Irvan was more dominant, winning five poles and leading the most laps eleven times on the season. Nonetheless, Earnhardt as usual was more consistent to overcome Irvan's domination in the races and keep the championship close. He won the race at Talladega on the same day Formula One legend Ayrton Senna died, and Earnhardt dedicated his win that day to Senna and his close friend Neil Bonnett, who had died at Daytona in 1994. Irvan's championship hopes were derailed when he was nearly killed in a practice crash at Michigan, and he was given only a 10% chance of survival. Earnhardt and Martin were among the earliest to see him in the hospital shortly after the crash. As a result of Irvan's accident, Earnhardt was able to claim his seventh championship easily. Wallace won eight races, but was not even in contention, as he was passed by Martin, who finished a distant second to Earnhardt. Earnhardt was now universally considered one of the greatest NASCAR drivers ever.
In later years, Earnhardt had three main goals: an eighth Winston Cup championship, breaking Richard Petty's record, a Daytona 500 victory, and winning the most popular driver award, which Elliott dominated year after year in the '80s and '90s. After winning four of five championships, many expected Earnhardt to win the championship again in 1995, but that year represented a major changing of the guard, as Gordon, the main star of the next generation, won his first championship and dominated the season for the Hendrick team, with his superstar crew chief Ray Evernham. Earnhardt was highly competitive in 1995, winning five races, most notably his first road course win at Sears Point and the second Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis. Gordon however controlled the flow of the season, especially in the second half, with fifteen consecutive top ten finishes. Gordon had a miserable end to the season, allowing Earnhardt to close the championship to 34 points with his season-ending win at Atlanta, but it was not enough to claim the championship. Earnhardt frequently played head games with Gordon, by Earnhardt saying he was the first man to win the Brickyard 400, but the two were friends and business partners. Earnhardt was largely responsible for the boom in stock car racing memorabilia, through his company Dale Earnhardt Inc., which licensed Earnhardt-related products, kicking off that era of NASCAR history, which became a major business venture. In addition, his racing team in the Busch Series fell under the DEI banner, and he prepared for life after driving when he retired from the Busch Series in 1994 and hired Jeff Green to drive full seasons in 1995 and 1996, thenSteve Park in 1997. In 1996, Earnhardt led the points standings for much of the first half of the season, but suffered a cracked sternum after a wreck at Talladega, probably his most dramatic wreck to that point. Showing his toughness, two weeks later, he set the track qualifying record at Watkins Glen and dominated the race, but he struggled in the second half of the season as Hendrick drivers Gordon and Labonte took control of the title chase. The following year, Earnhardt was not a serious contender for wins for the most part except on restrictor plate tracks, and even though he was matched with the big-name crew chief Larry McReynolds, he had his first winless season since 1981 in 1997. He had a dramatic wreck in 1997 after he and Gordon battled for second position late in the Daytona 500, where he flipped several times, then decided his car was still drivable, reentering the race instead of going into the ambulance, showing his traditional toughness. However, he showed signs of weakness, such as in the Southern 500, when he fell asleep and hit the wall on the pace lap for reasons that were never revealed. Childress's son-in-law Mike Dillon finished the race for Earnhardt, allowing Earnhardt to become the second driver to finish every race in a Cup season, following Yarborough. 1998 was similar to 1997, as he struggled again, especially on the intermediate tracks, which were generally dominated by Gordon and Fords, but he did have one of his greatest career highlights, finally winning the Daytona 500 in his twentieth attempt. The win was popular in the NASCAR garage as every crewman on pit road shook his hand as a sign of respect. Earnhardt then left tire tracks in the shape of a #3 to celebrate his victory. Also in 1998, DEI moved up to Winston Cup with Park, but was not very successful as Park suffered a major injury at Atlanta that caused him to miss much of the season. He continued his Busch Series program for his son Dale Earnhardt, Jr., which was much more successful, with Earnhardt, Jr. dominating the 1998 and 1999 Busch Series seasons. In 1999, he swept the races at Talladega, but the most famous moment of 1999 and indeed his later career came when he spun Terry Labonte on the last lap at Bristol, the first blatant wreck he caused after his 1996 Talladega crash, which led to him receiving a chorus of boos in victory lane. Earnhardt said that he meant to "rattle his cage" rather than actually wreck Labonte, but few fans accepted this story. Nonetheless, he was showing some of his old fire, and he showed even more in 2000, especially after neck surgery, to attempt to heal his injuries from his Talladega crash. Although Earnhardt was not consistent enough to challenge Bobby Labonte for the championship, he did provide two of the season's most exciting moments, defeating Bobby Labonte in a photo finish at Atlanta, and driving from eighteenth to win in only five laps in his final race at Talladega. The DEI team also won its first races with Earnhardt, Jr., now a Winston Cup driver driving the #8 Budweiser Chevy for DEI, becoming the first driver to win twice in the 2000 season, and Park scoring his first win at Watkins Glen. As he had improved so significantly in 2000, many thought he was due for an even greater resurgence in 2001 and a possible championship challenge. Earnhardt and Earnhardt, Jr. made some headlines in 2001 driving a Chevrolet Corvette in the Rolex 24 at Daytona as a teammate to the winning Ron Fellows-led entry. The Earnhardts finished fourth overall and second in the GTS class co-driving with Andy Pilgrim and Kelly Collins, inspiring many other top NASCAR drivers to enter the Rolex in later seasons. However, tragedy struck two weeks later in the Daytona 500. Earnhardt had managed to avoid the horrific multi-car pileup in which Tony Stewart became airborne, and late in the race ran third, while the two DEI entries of Michael Waltrip (new to the DEI team for 2001) and Earnhardt, Jr. were running 1-2. Earnhardt was blocking for the two cars he owned, but Marlin's front bumper made contact with Earnhardt's rear bumper, causing Earnhardt to go sideways. He was set to spin out, but overcorrected his car to attempt to regain control, which eventually led to him making a direct hit in turn 4. Although the wreck was much less dramatic than others Earnhardt survived, he was killed instantly.
Ultimately, the cause of death was ruled to be a basilar skull fracture but there were a variety of explanations given for what caused this to occur. Given Earnhardt's celebrity, his accident eventually propelled NASCAR to make safety changes to a far greater degree than it had when Kenny Irwin, Adam Petty, and Tony Roper had died the previous year in NASCAR-sanctioned events. Initially, NASCAR officials declared that a seat belt manufactured by Bill Simpson's company faltered, which led to Simpson even receiving death threats. Simpson argued Earnhardt chose to wear his belt unsafely for his comfort. Eventually, it was agreed that Earnhardt's improperly secured head-and-neck restraint was a greater factor. He also wore an open-faced helmet. In the wake of his tragedy, NASCAR would eventually (but only after Blaise Alexander's death) mandate the HANS (Head and Neck Support) device, and almost all drivers who had not switched to closed-faced helmets would eventually do so. The addition of SAFER foam barriers (adopted for IRL cars at Indianapolis and eventually adopted for all other NASCAR ovals) and the Car of Tomorrow also have led to greater driver safety. In addition to Simpson, Marlin also received death threats because he was seen by some fans as causing the wreck that killed Earnhardt, but Earnhardt, Jr. absolved Marlin of any wrongdoing in an attempt to stop this.
Earnhardt's legacy was so tremendous that no one driver could hope to live up to it. Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, and Jimmie Johnson would become the top drivers of the next several years, but none captured Earnhardt's aura. In a symbolic gesture, Elliott removed himself from the Most Popular Driver voting to allow Earnhardt to win posthumously, thus achieving everything he had wanted to in NASCAR except an eighth championship. Childress and Earnhardt had agreed that if anything happened to one of them, the other would continue competition, and true to his word, Childress renumbered Earnhardt's #3 car #29 and brought his Busch Series driver Kevin Harvick up to Winston Cup, where he would win in his third start and become one of the top drivers in the series. DEI continued to be strongly competitive, especially in 2003 and 2004, but faded in 2005 after Earnhardt, Jr. and Waltrip's crews were swapped. After Earnhardt, Jr. left for Hendrick for the 2008 season, the team became mid-pack before eventually merging with Chip Ganassi's operation. In addition to Earnhardt, Jr., Kerry Earnhardt followed him to Winston Cup as well with little success.
Although his legacy remains intact, Earnhardt in many ways personified NASCAR and much has been lost. In his later years, he was one of the few drivers who had the clout to voice drivers' safety concerns (for instance when he frequently stated that restrictor plate races weren't real racing, even though he was better on the plate tracks than anyone else, and even in victory lane), and also had influence lobbying the organization when Chevrolet was not as strong as the other manufacturers, because NASCAR, unlike many other auto racing organizations, seeks parity between the makes. He was considered a bully on the track, but off the track he could be philanthropic, such as when he sponsored Irvan's first Winston Cup ride, instantly giving him credibility before he became respected as one of the top drivers. Earnhardt's polarizing figure attracted many to NASCAR as it gained an audience through ESPN in the 1980s and 1990s, but as the series became more commercialized, many drivers became less outspoken and more acceptable to middle America to not anger sponsors. As such, Earnhardt was one of the few drivers who was in touch with the southern roots of the sport, given his more rural and Southern hobbies and his desire to keep his public and private lives separate, each of which is less common among more recent drivers. After his death, many felt NASCAR became sterile, and although the sport continued, it lost much of the "larger than life" appeal that had made it popular in the first place.
