The ultimate Dale Earnhardt story… there’s no topping this one.
Many racing fans know his story. Dale Earnhardt was born in the small town of Kannapolis, North Carolina into a racing family. His dad was one of the best short-track drivers in the state, and was a driving force (pun not intended, but I like it) in what made him want to be a race car driver in the first place.
And his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. told a great story on his podcast the Dale Jr. Download a couple years ago, involving Dale Sr. and a trespasser hunting deer on his property, that’s truly one of the best about his dad I’ve ever heard.
It all started with a guy fixing a tractor on Dale Sr.’s land back in 1993:
“So, a guy was working on a tractor during the day on dad’s property, fixing a big tractor. And he saw some deer, went to a bar later that afternoon, happy hour drinkin’ with a buddy of his tellin’ his buddy about the deer. The more they drank, the braver they got. They decided they were gonna come back to dad’s property at dark, around dark, jump the fence and shoot one of the deer, right?”
I’ll admit that I know next to nothing about hunting, but I know a hell of a lot about Dale Earnhardt so I’m already thinking this guy’s an idiot. I guess they don’t call it liquid courage for nothing…
Dale Jr. continued:
“Dad and his farm manager guy are walking the power line, and they’re in the tree line walkin’ this power line. Just happened to be there that day. And they heard the gun shot and they saw the deer run down the power line and fall down. And so they hid in the tree line and waited for those guys to come up to the deer.”
And if you think Dale Sr. is about to let this guy off easy, think again:
“And when they got to the deer, dad just ran after the one with the gun and he tackled the guy and broke his hand on his face. And the only reason why he stopped punching the guy was cuz the guy, he recognized the guys voice, and his face I guess, once he started saying ‘Hey man, stop’.”
Broke his hand? Punching the guy’s FACE.
“So dad held him there until the cops got there. But he ended up getting his cast on his arm and he went to the banquet with that cast and his tux [with] his black and white cast. And he told everybody a lie, he told everybody a lie about how it happened.”
Now, knowing how men are, I would think he’d be happy to tell everyone the true story about how he broke his hand. But, I guess he didn’t want to have to break it again in case anyone got any ideas about wanting to set up shop somewhere on his land and get their own deer.
Though if you know anything about Dale Sr., I don’t see how anyone would even dream about trespassing on his land. I mean, I would think just knowing this story in and of itself would be enough to deter someone from doing that…
“He didn’t want people to know about his deer, he didn’t want more people showin’ up, trying to sneak into his property cuz he had some really big bucks on that property. He wasn’t hunting it, he was just wanting them to be there cuz he liked watching ’em. And so he told a different story.”
He’s as real as they come. He was even told by his boss that he couldn’t race at the Daytona 500 with the cast on, so what did he do? Well, what do you think he did? He cut it off right there in the office. It’s my favorite part of the whole story, actually:
“I told him he couldn’t run Daytona with it, so he got a pair of scissors, cut it off, and tossed it to me as he left.”
Jr. shared proof of it on his X feed a while back, where you can even see a picture of his cast:
In fact, this happened right before the 1990 NASCAR Awards Banquet, where he was giving a speech as the Winston Cup Series champion, so he painted his cast black to match his tux. In the video below, you can see him up there on stage wearing it.
Just an iconic, all-time amazing story all-around that showcases the true, bad*ss, unrelenting nature of The Intimidator that I love so much. It perfectly embodies everything that made him such an illustrious and larger-than-life character in many ways.
You can see the cast very prominently during his speech, and he messes with it some, but makes no mention of how it got there, which only adds to the mystique of this legendary story:
Dale Earnhardt accepts his gold replica car from Goodyear at the 1990 Awards Banquet
He has a cast on his hand because he whipped a guy’s ass for hunting deer on his property pic.twitter.com/feMfKsIKCG
— nascarman (@nascarman_rr) December 2, 2022
Check out Dale Jr. tell the story himself, it’s well-worth your time:
