It’s really an incredible story.
Dale Earnhardt Sr. has four children, and his eldest son is Kerry Dale Earnhardt, the only child he had with his first wife, Latane. They met in person for the first time when Kerry was 16, and it’s a story he has detailed the story before with his brother, Dale Earnhardt Jr., on his podcast Dale Jr. Download podcast.
Dale Sr. and his first wife Latane were married when they were 18 years old, and got divorced a few years later when Kerry was just 3 years old. Their marriage fell apart because Dale wanted to pursue a career in racing, and the first member of the Earnhardt family he met and started telling him about his Earnhardt family was his mawmaw, Martha.
She had been come to watch one of his baseball games at Jackson Park in Concord, North Carolina, and brought some of his cousins along, and eventually, she introduced herself to him as his grandmother:
“And fast-forward, I was at a ball game. I played ball here in Kannapolis, and this woman was always there with these two little girls watching. and I was always like, man, that’s kind of weird. and one day I was walking back to the car to put my glove and bat and stuff up, and this lady comes up and says ‘Kerry Dale?’ I said ‘Yes.’
[She said] I’m your mawmaw Martha, and this is your cousin Jennifer and Ashley.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ And so we talked, and I went on, and I told my mom I had met these people, and that’s when we had the sit down story, and she told me the whole spiel about how things happened.”
What Kerry didn’t realize at the time was that his parents friends, Danny and Sherry, were actually his aunt and uncle, because Danny was Dale’s brother. They helped organize a phone call between Kerry and Dale, but that was about it for a couple of years:
“Yes, through all that time, I had really not gotten to talk to them except for at the ball games. And at some point, I don’t know how old I was, my mom was friends with my uncle Danny and Sherry, his wife, and I didn’t know that they were my family.
They were just friends, they would do a lot of things together, but they set it up to where we’d go to Danny’s and Sherry‘s house to call dad for the first time and speak to him. So we did that, and it was an experience, you know. First time ever speaking to Dad. And it was on the phone, which is kind of odd, but I took it.”
When he turned 16, Kerry Dale decided to go over to his mawmaw Martha’s house to meet his dad in person finally, who had his famous deer head shop behind his mom’s house.
Kerry says it took him two hours to work up the courage to finally walk out there… when he finally did, he says all the laughing and joking he could hear from the outside stopped, and you could “hear a feather drop.”
His dad suggested they go for a drive:
“And then when I turned 16, I told him whenever I got my license I’m gonna drop my mom off, and I’m going over to my mawmaw’s to meet my dad. And so I pulled up my mawmaw, and pulled up in front of the house, and the garage is behind it.
Went in and saw my mawmaw, we sat there for probably about two hours before I built the courage to walk out the back door to go to the garage. And when I opened door and walked in, it got quiet. You could hear everybody laughing and everything, it got quiet, like you could hear a feather drop.
Dad’s like, ‘Hey, son.’ I’m like, ‘Hey man, what’s up?’ ‘Come on, let’s go riding.’ We went and rode around, kind of caught up a little bit.”
Kerry says he never held a grudge against his dad for any of the time they missed out on together, because he believes everything happens for a reason and it was “meant to be that way.”
He did explain that his adopted father Jack didn’t want him to get to know Dale at first, as I’m sure he was afraid Kerry would end up getting hurt or being disappointed, considering Dale had never made any significant efforts to be part of Kerry’s life.
Kerry says that eventually, Jack and Dale even became friends, and he’s grateful that it all worked out the way it did:
“Our relationship grew from there on, and it was great to reconnect and get our relationship back. I didn’t look anything negative of what all happened, I’m one that thinks things happen for reasons, and if it was meant to be, it was meant to be, and it was meant to be. We had a great life together.
My dad to adopted me, Jack, and he was not for me seeing my dad or getting to know my dad. But after it all got going, him and dad got to be together a lot, and my adopted dad Jack would come over, he would be my crew chief on my lake models. So we’d go over to the shop and work, and I’d end up being the only working, because him and Dad would go back on the farm riding around and talking.
So they had a good friendship they built up, and it was quite the experience, and I’m privileged to have that in my life and feel that and be part of that.”
It’s really impressive that he was able to forgive his father for everything that happened in his childhood, and clearly he still has a lot of love and admiration for him to this day. I don’t know many people who could do that so easily, especially from such a young age, but it surely served him well in life and allowed him to develop a really great relationship with his father when they did finally get the opportunity.
Dale Jr. often talks about what a strained relationship he had with his dad for many years, but it sounds like Kerry had a very different experience, which is probably because he was so much older when Dale came into his life.
Kerry Dale and Dale Jr. remain close to this day, and it’s really interesting to hear Kerry’s perspective on his legendary father and what their very unique relationship was like too. While he didn’t seem like the kind of person to ever verbalize it, I’m sure Dale Sr. was appreciative of the grace and forgiveness from his oldest son, as any parent who has ever made any kind if mistake would be.
Kerry talked about all of that and more on the Checkers, Wreckers and What the Heckers podcast, which you can watch below.
