KANNAPOLIS NC. (April 29, 2007)-In my short tenure in the world of motorsports journalism, I’ve had the great privilege to interview several drivers. But there’s one interview that I was never able to conduct; one interview that I’ll never be able to conduct in fact except in my mind.
On the occasion of his 56th birthday on April 29th, I tried to imagine what it would be like if I were able to sit down and talk to Dale Earnhardt Senior.
You watched this year’s Daytona 500? What did you think about the race, it was six years to the day that…
“Let’s get something straight from the get go here, I know I’m gone, you know I’m gone, the whole world does. Hell I don’t want any sadness over it. I didn’t want it then and I don’t want it now. I hated to know that people made such a big fuss about it when it happened. There was a lot of good that came out of it, drivers are safer and the sport is bigger then ever, so maybe that was the reason.
See I’ve always believed that God does everything for a reason, doesn’t mean we have to agree with it or like it. I think life is one long road and sometimes God takes us on little detours…we don’t always want to go down ‘em, but we do and eventually God picks us up, dusts us off and sends us back out on the main road of life.
Most of the time we’re stronger because of them little detours, or in my case a whole bunch of people are safer for it.
As for the Daytona 500 this year, it was a great race man, great. Of course had I been there I wouldn’t have passed Mark on the last lap like that. I would’ve already been in the lead (laughs).
But it was good for Kevin; I mean I told Richard when that kid was racing out west in 98 that he had the makings of a great driver. I was tickled when he got into the car, couldn’t have been happier, he sure would have been my choice. Kevin’s done well but has had this shadow hanging over him all these years, I’m afraid I was a big part of that, I mean what I was able to do when I was around. But finally I think he’s come out from under it, winning that Daytona 500 this year like he did, I think that proved it.
(Leans forward and winks). “Of course I have some inside information that Kevin’s going to do a whole bunch more than that before it’s all over.”
One of the big debates since you…left…has been with the number you raced, the 3. Should the number be raced again?
“That’s not my decision, that’s Richard’s. I’ll tell you one thing though; when you’re sitting inside that racecar you don’t see anything but the track, the guys in front and back of you and the steering wheel. I never cared too much what was on the side of it, remember I once raced a car that was pink, so it doesn’t make difference to me.”
But if it was your decision?
(Sighs) “If it were up to me, then I’d say run the damn thing. I mean it’s just a number.
What about them young guys who never met me, or care about what I did. What about them young drivers coming up who have no idea what that number means. I mean maybe they’ve run a number 3 all their lives, and could care less what I did with it. Now they show up and want to run the number they’ve run all their careers, you mean to tell me someone would tell them no? I just don’t see that. But like I said in the end when we’re inside that racecar, it doesn’t matter to us what the hell’s on the side.”
Most fans say that the only way the number should be raced again is if your son Junior races it as part of Richard Childress Racing.
(Laughs). “Hell Dale Junior needs to race wherever he needs to to win races. You go out there to win races not to be sentimental. If he feels that he can win races with RCR, than fine, if it’s with Roush or Gibbs or Yates, it don’t matter just go wherever he needs to to win races and championships.”
What’s your assessment of Junior’s career to this point?
“The boy knows how to race, I’ll tell you that. Course I always knew that, but he’s gone out and proved it to everybody else. He’s always been his own person and I know that after I left, people were trying to get him to fill my shoes, but he’s done a damn good job of becoming his own man, I’m proud of him and all my kids.
But I’ll tell you someone they need to keep an eye on, is that grandson of mine, Jeffery, Kerry’s boy. I see the makins’ in him just like I did in Dale Junior and Harvick. I’m telling you, here in a few years that boy is going to make everyone in NASCAR sit up and take notice. That’s a young man that Richard ought to look at signing, that’s someone that could run that number 3. He’ll run the wheels off of it.”
Junior and your daughter Kelley are currently negotiating with Dale Earnhardt Incorporated and…
“Don’t get me started on that. But I will tell you this. We built that place and now Teresa’s running it. What people need to understand is that Teresa is a hell of a lot smarter than some people give her credit for.
You know when we started trying to make money away from the track, I mean my former business manager Don Hawk helped a lot and was a big part of all that success, but people need to know that Teresa was a big part of it too. She just never took credit for it, she didn’t want to. All I ever wanted to do was race, but Teresa was one of those who knew that we could make money off my popularity, so she was behind a lot of that. And today she runs DEI and you know what, I left it to her and how she wants to run it is up to her. It’s just that people in the media don’t give her a lot of the credit because she won’t speak to them much. Well you know something? I was never a big fan of talking to you all and neither is she.
Just because Tony Stewart won’t talk to the media now and then doesn’t make him a bad racecar driver does it?
Is Teresa doing a good job with DEI? Well I left good people there; Richie Gilmore, Steve Hmiel, the Eury’s Tony senior and junior. Maybe she just needs to focus on putting more into it, more resources so they can run with the big dogs, Hendrick and Roush. One thing they’ve always needed there is more people working on the engines; they need more power under them hoods, hell tell me when was the last time Dale Junior sat on a pole? I’ll tell you five years ago; 2002 at Kansas. That says something about where they are weak, doesn’t it?
But Dale Junior and his sister Kelley, I love them both like you’ll never know but him and his sister need to keep in mind that I built DEI for all my kids. Not just Junior. He wants to take over control of it, well he also needs to stop and think about something for a minute.
Those years there towards the end when I wasn’t winning races, people said I was washed up and over the hill? Those were the years I was getting that place up and running. Took all I had to get it going. Looking back on it I realize I was focusing too much on it, and it affected my performance on the track.
Dale Junior has had his own deal going now for a few years, and maybe he’s gotten a taste of what it takes to run one of them. That ain’t nothing compared to what he’d have to deal with if he took control of DEI.
The Earnhardt’s need to stick to what they do best and that’s race cars. If he wants to run the place, let him go out win some more races and a championship or two, then maybe he can kick back and look at doing it years down the road. But not yet, not just yet.
And like I said him and that sister of his need to never forget that I founded DEI for all my kids, Dale Junior, Kerry, Kelley and Taylor.
I’m not sayin’ that him and his step mom don’t need to mend a fence or two, but let her run it, for now.
And no one in the Earnhardt family should ever pay a damn dime to take over what I left for ‘em.
They all just need to get their heads together, get some people in that engine shop, they’ll be fine.
But like I said earlier, Dale Junior needs to go wherever he thinks he can win races. If that ain’t at DEI then so be it. The world isn’t going to stop just because Dale Junior goes somewhere else, his fans will follow him anywhere. People think that DEI would fall apart if he left, that’s nonsense. That place will be just fine without him if that’s what he decides, besides like I told you, wait until that grandson of mine, Jeffery moves up.
The deal is all about winning races, you don’t do that, you need to find something else to do. Or you need to get with the right people. Dale Junior can win races, whether its going to be at DEI or not, that’s up to him.
Look at Bobby’s boy. Hamilton Junior talked to his dad, just before his dad came here. He told his dad that he didn’t like the way that the race team was being run, didn’t think that he could win races there. His dad told him that was fine and that Bobby Junior needed to do whatever was best for his career, the team will go on and it’s there for him if he wants it. If not then do what’s best for Bobby Junior and his career. I think if I would‘ve had a chance to tell that to Dale Junior, that’s exactly what I would have told him.
How do you think NASCAR has done since you left, under Brian France’s direction?
I remember when Brian was a snot nosed little kid sweating it out mowing the grass in the infield in Daytona. People need to know stuff like that. He worked his way up, he wasn’t handed that job on a sliver platter, his daddy made him work for it. Just like I made Dale Junior work for what he’s got.
NASCAR isn’t just about racing anymore, maybe it used to be; but now it’s a big old business. But that snot nose little kid runs it the way he’s supposed too. When you run a business your goal is to grow that business and make it successful, and Brian is doin’ just fine with that. Is it good? Is it bad? I can’t say. I do know one thing and that’s Brian is doing what he’s supposed to do when you run a business.
I never would have thought that it could get as big as it has gotten. And that Chase deal, I like that, gives everyone something to shoot at; something for everyone to look forward to at the end of the year.
Everyone is all upset over the damn TV ratings. I say as long as people are buying tickets and drivers are showing up to race each week, the TV deal will take care of itself. Don’t get all caught up in ratings, as long as everyone in the sport is putting some money in their pockets, that’s all that matters.
Just don’t try and get too greedy. Never forget those people that work hard and have to scrape their money together to go see a race or buy a hat. One thing I never forgot; that one dollar that one person spends on something starts the whole chain. Without that first dollar coming out of someone’s pocket none of it would be possible.
They worry about TV ratings; they need to worry more is if attendence at their tracks starts to drop, I mean really drop. Right now you are starting to see that a little bit. To hell with the TV ratings, they need to find out why there are empty seats on Sunday. Could be that someone is wanting too big a piece of the pie somewhere along the line.
You can make money, in fair way, without hurting that guy who’s taking that dollar out of his pocket.
No matter what you do, people are still going to show up to watch, and young drivers still want to race in NASCAR. That core, that center, ain’t never going to change, and if it does then they might have something to worry about.
Those people in New York and Washington State that don’t want a track, screw ‘em, take the money somewhere else. As for new tracks, it doesn’t matter to a driver if a tracks in Alabama or Timbuktu, they’ll race no matter where you tell ‘em to go. And fans in that area will line up at the gate and pay to watch.
That new car they’re running? It’s ugly as hell, and I love it. Reminds me of what we used to race. People will get used to seeing it, and the drivers would race shoeboxes with four wheels hooked on if that’s what NASCAR told them to race, so that isn’t an issue.
One thing they got a problem with ‘em though. I was talking with Lee Petty and he made the point that owners are having to pay to have two different cars built while they do that ‘phase in’. NASCAR needs to go ahead and tell them guys one way or another which car to run, the thing works, that car is fine. Hell they just need to go ahead and run them right away and get it over with. 2008 would be fine, I guess, but just quit making these teams build two cars.
One thing I think they’re missing as far as drivers is someone who isn’t afraid to speak up. Let NASCAR know when they screw up. Someone who isn’t afraid to march into that hauler and put that snot nose kid in his place sometimes. Like I said I think Brian’s doing a good job, he’s a good man, but the drivers themselves have no leadership, they need that, need that to help balance everything out.
Somebody among the drivers needs to stand up and take charge. I know Stewart tried it for a while, but now it seems like he just avoids it all.
Drivers are so damn sanitized now that they are afraid to speak their minds. They either say what they’ve been taught to say, like a damn trained monkey, or they just don’t say anything at all, my boy included. There’s no character in the sport, it’s like a bunch of robots racing each other.
Is there something you’d like to say to your family? Your friends? Maybe your fans? I understand if you don’t want to answer the family part, I don’t want to get too personal…
(Chuckles) Don’t worry. My family already knows what I’d tell ‘em. We were pretty close that way. Teresa and I always had an understanding. Driving a racecar ain’t exactly the safest occupation a man can choose to do, we knew that. Course I guess because God made us take that little detour on that road of life, me included, it’s a lot safer than it used to be.
Guess there’s what you’d call some irony in that for me.
You know me and God were pretty close, got along pretty good. I tried to have an understanding with him; that all things happen for a reason and His will be done.
I mean sure I miss things. I miss my wife and being there for my kids. Taylor is becoming a beautiful young woman, and stays away from the sport, that’s good.
I miss talking to Richard, I used to call him late at night, he’d bring some wine over and we’d just talk, most times about nothing at all, but I kind of miss that.
But them, my family, my friends, they know I’m still there, around them. I don’t believe in ghosts and things, but they know. I’m never really that far away.
And those drivers who are still racing after having accidents that were worse then mine, they know I’m still around.
(Sighs) This may not make sense, but when I was there I used to believe, and now I know it’s the truth, well let me tell you what happened to me.
In order to get into Heaven, you have to cross a bridge. Just this side of that bridge there is a meadow. You can picture yours however you want, but mine was always filled with my favorite tracks and my favorite people.
Anyway it’s in this meadow that you wait. You wait for all those that you’ve loved in your life to join you, and you wait there with all those loved ones who have gone before you.
I found out when I got here, that my meadow is just like I pictured it was going to be. My favorite tracks and my favorite people are all here. (Smiles) I got Smoky Yunick as my crew chief and my daddy as my spotter. I get to race against Neil and Alan and Fireball and Tiny, Bobby who recently joined us and Adam, whose got Lee as his crew chief, that’s a hell of combination I can tell you that. Course that Irwin boy has been kickin’ all our tails lately. And now Benny’s around; he can’t decide whether he wants to set up there in the booth and call the race or jump in and race himself, so he splits his time between the two.
But all we do is race; no media, no sponsor stuff, we just race. Best part is, here I get to rattle ‘em all the time and nobody says too much.
Time here is different; one day here is like I don’t know, twenty, thirty, forty years to you.
But one day, somewhere in the future, people will come to the end of that road of life I was mentioning before and they’ll get to that meadow.
It’ll be kind of like when I got here. Head down, trudging up to the end of that road, with the weight of the world on your shoulders, kind of scared not exactly knowing what’s going on.
All of a sudden you hear a voice.
“Hello son.”
And you turn and it takes you a minute to realize what’s going on, but you look and you see him standing there, not like he was at the end of his road, but when his was in the center of that journey, full of life.
“Hey dad.”
He sees you the same way, full of life, just as he remembers you.
“I missed you boy.”
He smiles.
“I missed you too dad.”
You come together in the sweetest embrace you ever knew. The kind you wished for more than once after he was gone when things in your life got bad. You know the kind that you felt when you were five years old, sitting on your daddy’s lap with your ear on his chest, listening to him talk? You knew that he’d never let anything bad happen to you. You can still smell the aftershave, and his stale cigarette smoke.
And you knew it was going to be ok.
Everybody will go through that sooner or later. It may be twenty, thirty, forty years from now, although to us it will only be a week, a month, maybe a year here.
But eventually everyone you loved while you were on the road of your life will be reunited, and when you are you all walk into the gates of Heaven, arm in arm, hand in hand, together.
Some peoples meadows may be full of golf courses, or mountains but where I’m waitin’ I’m racing all the time, keeping my eye on what’s happening over there and having a great time.
Editors Note: Since this was an interview that took place only in my mind, the opinions are of course mine. I merely tried to pay homage to one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR.
By Amy Hair
By Greg Engle
Cover Your Behind
If Grant Lynch, the Track President of Talladega has his way, our beer throwing clan that pelted Jeff Gordon’s car last Saturday night will be banned from all the tracks on the circuit. Sound good? Well…this seems to be one of those situations that has a lot more gray than it has black and white. Sure, throwing an object and hitting someone else’s property is a no-no. In fact, throwing anything at a moving car is pretty much a felony in most states…you end in up in the big house instead of at the big track for something like that.
So should the circumstances matter? After all, these guys that threw the cans were more than likely on their last leg of consciousness before the brew took over and laid them down for a seriously long alcohol induced nap right? Should that matter? Nope…that excuse doesn’t even come close to being valid in my book.
Were these fans temporarily blinded by their seemingly valid dedication to something that at that moment took total control of their being? Uh…who cares…it doesn’t matter, still not a valid excuse.
Personally I’m thinking these “fans” that showed their behinds to millions of people are probably sitting back reading all this stuff and wondering what the heck is going on. People have thrown stuff before…they didn’t get in such big trouble, so what’s the deal?
The deal is we’ve had two straight weeks of this ridiculous behavior, and the bigger deal is that each time, there were more cans sailing through the air. The possibility of this becoming a trend is more than just a passing chance…unless it’s halted right now.
So how are they (the racing honcho’s) going to stop it? So far they have penalized the culprits that they managed to catch, and that is good…setting examples works well in most instances. But here, in the land of NASCAR, where we have upwards of 200,000 people all crammed together side by side, all excited, all having the time of their lives, and about 2/3 of them cruising on a belly full of brew…this becomes one huge challenge as to how to patrol them without chasing them away.
If we ban the coolers and the contents from making it through the gate, that will present another interesting situation. Lots of fans would rebel and not come to the races simply because they have emptied their piggy banks to buy tickets, pay for hotels and meals, and then having to pay upwards of $7.00 – $10.00 bucks to quench a parched throat might just throw them right over the edge. Some people are already teetering on top of that fence, so this would pretty much make them consider a different venue to occupy their vacation days…and that’s a shame.
So what’s the answer? There doesn’t seem to be one. Perhaps the local policemen that are working the track for extra cash could make sure about 70% of them are over by the start finish line so that when the unfavored winner starts his burn out, they could actually nab the pitchers before they let loose of a loaded can, or grab them soon after. A couple weeks of this, with more arrests and more build up from the press might simmer things down a bit.
So what if the hurlers were doing this only because it was Jeff Gordon? Now how pitiful would that be? Heck, I’d pay for someone to round up those bozos and chuck them right into a cell because that is just plain ignorant. It’s okay to have a favorite driver and to not like others, but jeepers… throwing things to make your point? What point would that be? That you’re immature? Oh yeah….I already got that point. Come on now folks…I think that is something my kids did when they were about three years old.
Well, there doesn’t seem to be an easy answer, but in reality, this is a straight forward, black and white, no gray issue. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, plain and simple. Throwing stuff is wrong, it hurts the integrity of the race, and even worse, it could hurt a person.
What do you say we head into Richmond and put this whole can throwing thing behind us…literally. Since most of the bad boys and girls that hurled were showing their behinds, they need something to cover them up…so instead of throwing the cans, just lasso those suckers around your waist and let them hang back there…cover up that behind that no one wants to get a glimpse of anyway. In the meantime, we’ll settle in for the race, and when the winner crosses the finish line, the rest of us will act like we were brought up someplace other than in a barn. Oh, there are still plenty of seats for those that want to cross over into the intelligent realm, as I’m sure the seats that are reserved for the stupid will begin to fade away rather quickly.