Dale Earnhardt was a true one of a kind, that’s no big secret.
And before he was the superstar NASCAR driver and American icon we all love today, he got into quite a bit of trouble for doing things that, let’s just say, you definitely would not get away with in this day and age.
And on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s podcast the Dale Jr. Download last year, they had on guest Tony Furr, who is a former crew chief and legend in the NASCAR world.
He’s also a North Carolina native like Dale Sr., and they were friends long before either one of them had any sort of notoriety or success in racing.
So of course, he has plenty of good stories about The Intimidator from way, way back, and he shared some great ones with Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis this week, including the fact that Dale Sr. wasn’t just a scary driver on the track…
He didn’t mess around off the track, either, which really comes as no surprise:
“Your dad was fearless. He was fearless. I’m tellin’ you right now, there was only one of ’em, and he was the only one.
He wasn’t scare of, I mean, anything. And you could not dare him to do nothin’.”
And in addition to throwing lug nuts at people’s windshields when he got upset, he also had a loud speaker in the righthand corner of his truck, so he could tell them what the problem was, as well:
“In his truck, he had a loud speaker sittin’ over in the righthand corner, with a CB.
Everybody had CB’s, so he could holler at people and stuff right there.”
Pretty sure that’s definitely not legal for a regular citizen to be doing that, but if that’s not enough for ya, he’d also put his trailer into parked cars on the street.
And also, can you imagine a big truck driving past you, yelling what I imagine to be some choice words through the speaker, only to look over and see Dale Earnhardt in the driver’s seat?
He wasn’t nearly as famous or well-known at the time, but I know many of the locals around town definitely knew who he was.
Tony says that he’d sometimes drive down the street and actually see tire marks on the side of some of the cars, and obviously, he knew exactly why:
“I know another time… he come home and the trailer didn’t have no fenders on it, and there would be cars running up and down the road there that had wheel marks on the side of them.”
To which Dale Jr. responded:
“He’d put the trailer in the damn parked cars on the street!”
And of course, Sr. would throw in that signature lug nut for good measure:
“Well, I mean, they come off that ramp, and if he didn’t like the way they were coming off that ramp, and it was gonna be at the same time, timing was everything, you know… bam!
And then throw a lug nut over.”
WILD stuff… you just can’t make it up.
And of course, I’m not saying that was a good thing to do at all, but something about it just feels so badass to me, for better or worse.
Make sure you check it out for yourself, it’s really a great episode:
