Imagine starting your career by interviewing the Intimidator.
By the mid-1990s, Dale Earnhardt was a seven time NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion, one of the top drivers in tehe sport and in the conversation for the greatest NASCAR driver of all time.
Sage Steele, however, was just getting her start as a sports reporter.
The former ESPN reporter and SportsCenter anchor got her start working for a couple of local stations in Indiana, where one of her assignments was to cover the Brickyard 400 at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And Sage recently sat down with Justin Nunley and Matt Lyda for their White Trash With Money podcast, where she recalled her first-ever interview as a sports reporter – which happened to be with one of NASCAR’s biggest stars.
Sage recalls that she didn’t know much about NASCAR at the time:
“My first ever interview with Dale Earnhardt Sr. in Indianapolis, and I was a kid right out of college and didn’t grow up around NASCAR. I was an Army kid. We lived all over the world, but NASCAR wasn’t a thing.
I was at the Brickyard practice, and you can only act so well. And I was young, and I’m like, you know what? I don’t know what I’m talking about. You can read all you want. Again, pre-Google, 94, 95.”
Despite not knowing much about the sport, she knew who Dale Earnhardt was, so she decided to ask him for an interview – and the Intimidator happily obliged:
“I asked a couple questions, and I went up to Senior after, and I said, ‘Hey, would you mind? I’m new here, but would you mind if I ask you a couple questions?’
And he looked at me, he’s like, ‘Come with me.’ Put his arm around me. We walked down to his trailer, and for almost an hour, he just welcomed me and my cameraman in and sat and talked about the sport and the cars. Literally. That was my first ever experience.”
Sage admits that she didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, but it made her realize as a black female reporter that the stereotypes you often hear about NASCAR aren’t true:
“I don’t think at the time I fully appreciated it, even though I knew who he was. I’d studied him a little. And then certainly as I got more and more into it, I’m like, oh, my gosh. And that’s the story I always want people to know, people on the outside who stereotype NASCAR…
That was in ’94, ’95. No one else covering NASCAR at the Brickyard that year looked like me, that’s for sure. And Dale took me in.
So I’ve always fought back based on my experience with being so welcomed at every single track.”
You hear a lot of stories about how rough Dale Earnhardt could be. But you also hear a lot of stories exactly like this one, of a man who would take others under his wing, who was willing to put in the work to help people who were willing to help themselves.
NASCAR has obviously changed a lot, but I’ll say from my experience the drivers are the most accessible people and welcoming people I’ve ever interviewed. They’re just normal people who like to talk about their sport and welcome other people into it.
Although it’s hard to top having your first ever interview as a reporter being with Dale Earnhardt.
