On the track, you knew you needed to watch out when you saw that black #3 car behind you.
But out on the road, you might not realize that Dale Earnhardt was coming up behind you – so the Intimidator had to get creative to let people know.
Earnhardt was known as much for his fiery personality off the track and he was for his intimidating presence behind the wheel in the NASCAR Cup Series. A tough-as-nails guy who notoriously didn’t take any crap from anybody, Earnhardt’s friend and former NASCAR driver/crew chief Tony Furr joined Dale Earnhardt Jr. a while back to talk about some of his favorite stories about the Intimidator.
And as Earnhardt was trying to make a name for himself in racing, Furr recalls a man who truly earned his reputation:
“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 scared of, I mean, anything. And you could not dare him to do nothin’.”
In fact, Dale Sr. would actually keep his truck dashboard stocked with lug nuts, which he would legitimately throw at people’s windshields if he did something they didn’t like on the road, especially when he had a trailer behind him:
“We would leave the race track, and he would grab a handful of lug nuts, throw ’em on the dash.
And somebody passed us, or run us off a ramp, or done something wrong, he’d pitch a couple lug nuts in their windshield.”
But that wasn’t Earnhardt’s only way of letting his fellow drivers out on the road know that they had messed up.
Apparently, Dale kept a loudspeaker in his truck so that he could yell at them over his CB radio when a passing car pissed him off:
“In his truck, he had a loud speaker sittin’ over in the righthand corner, with a CB.
Everybody had CBs, so he could holler at people and stuff right there.”
And he even insisted that Furr get a speaker in his own truck so Earnhardt could yell at people while he was in the passenger seat:
“Once he got to runnin’ with me he said now, listen, we got to go get you a CB and microphone so I can talk to these people. While we’re driving down the street.”
Looking back, it doesn’t really surprise Dale Jr. that his dad was wide open even on the road:
“I knew…that dad was wide-ass open on the highways. Speeding, breaking laws, whatever.”
Just like he was on the track.
Earnhardt Didn’t Have A Drivers License Until His 30s
Tony also started out by telling a story about a race way back in the day, when the pair of friends were both desperate to win first or second place at every race, so they would win money, and be able to make it to the next week and try again.
Needless to say, Dale Sr. was giving all he had every week, and of course, rubbed quite a few people the wrong way, both literally and figuratively, I guess.
In fact, he almost started a riot at Metrolina speedway on a perfectly sunny day, where Tony, his crew chief at the time, notes there was not 1% chance of rain in the forecast or a cloud in the sky.
As luck (if that’s what you wanna call it) would have it, the bottom fell out right after Dale bumped the fan-favorite Dickie Anderson out of the race and moved up to second place.
They had to red-flag the race and stop because of the bad weather, and fans were pissed… he didn’t have the best reputation back then, to say the least. Fans started running onto the track and trying to find Dale Sr. to do who knows what to him because they were so mad.
It was clearly a very different time, too…
Tony said Dale Sr. of course took off runnin’:
“Your dad gets out the car, comes running over to us, he’s driving my ’73 Torino that I gave him, he’s got no license…”
This man, who became the greatest NASCAR driver of all time, had been out driving all over creation without an actual, legal driver’s license… insane doesn’t even feel like the right word here, but it’s the first one that comes to mind.
A shocked Dale Jr. responds:
“He ain’t got no license?”
And Tony told him:
“Oh no, your dad didn’t have no license for a long time!”
Jr. of course wants to know why, and though Tony’s hesitant to say, eventually admits:
“I would say he had a couple DUI’s…
He didn’t have no license, hell, til about 31 years old, probably.”
At this point, Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis are in shock, and Mike has the same reaction I did:
“What the hell? Good heavens!”
And as it turns out, because of what Mike refers to as an act of God with the rain, the race is red-flagged and called with Sr. in second place, so he actually takes home the second place money.
Can you even believe it? Just when you think you’ve heard everything with him…
Some stories are just too good, and too unbelievable, to make up, though.
What a life Dale Earnhardt Sr. lived, and it’s so cool that his friends are still around to tell the tales that shaped his legendary, outlaw career, and that Jr. has them on his podcast to share with the world.
Make sure watch the whole story below, because the story really ends with Dale Sr. jumping a barbed wire fence within an inch of his life while a mob of fans are trying to catch him…
