They don’t make ’em like Dale anymore.
He may have been “The Intimidator” both on and off the track, but underneath that rough exterior Dale Earnhardt had a heart for others.
The recent Earnhardt documentary on Prime Video gave us a much deeper look at the NASCAR legend, including not only his rise to becoming one of the greatest NASCAR drivers of all time, but also his at-times complicated relationships with his children Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kelley Earnhardt Miller and Kerry Earnhardt.
It’s pretty clear that his children struggled at times with having to grow up in the shadow of their father, who expected greatness from his children and at times seemed to have a hard time showing them how much he really loved them.
But at his core, Earnhardt was a guy who knew what it took to become successful, and never took for granted those around him who helped him get to where he was – including the employees at the racetracks.
During an appearance on The Dale Jr. Download podcast a while back, NASCAR Vice Chairman (and former NASCAR president) Mike Helton shared a story that really shows just what kind of guy Dale was to everyone around him, not just his fellow racers or sponsors or officials in the sport:
“The thing about Dale Sr., he would go into the ticket office or the administration office of every racetrack, every race weekend, and say hi to everybody. Every employee at every racetrack would see Dale Sr. on race weekend. And that’s kind of the relationship he had with the industry…
He’d come into NASCAR during Daytona, he’d come into the office building and walk to every floor, every desk, and say hello. So that was his unique personality that did that.”
Of course Helton admitted that sometimes those relationships with track employees would end up benefiting Dale too:
“Now, if he called up and said, ‘Hey, I need three extra parking tickets’ or something like that – the relationship worked both ways.”
Regardless, it’s an important reminder of how to treat people. It’s often said that you should treat the janitor the same way you treat the CEO (although I would argue a lot of times the janitor does more for the company than the CEO, but that’s just the cynical side of me), and Dale truly personified that during his legendary career.
Of course he showed some tough love to his kids too: Dale Earnhardt Jr. even recalled his dad making him find his own way home after winning his very first NASCAR Cup Series race.
“We pull into victory lane, and the first thing that always happened at the races was that the PR guy, Jade Gurss at the time…he comes to the window and he’s like, ‘Alright, real quickly, remember to say Budweiser.’ That’s their job, that’s his job every week…
And he’s coming in to the window, and you see this in the replay of the victory lane celebration, and dad grabs him by the neck and yanks him out of the way and jumps in there.
And dad said, ‘Awesome job, I’m proud of you, now you’re going to have to find another way home.’ Because he was going home. I would fly with him in his plane, and he was like, ‘I’m out of here, you’re gonna have to stick around because of post-race interviews, and you’re gonna ride home with the team.'”
Of course the winner of the race has to stick around and take pictures with everybody, meet with the media, talk about the race and what it means to win, all that fun stuff. But Earnhardt was getting out of there – which meant Junior wasn’t going to be able to fly back to North Carolina with him.
There’s no doubt that Junior learned from his father how important it was to have relationships with others, so I have no doubt he didn’t have any trouble finding a ride home.
