A rare glimpse into the outdoorsman side of the legendary Dale Earnhardt.
Dale Sr.’s racing career is one of legend. He was a seven-time Cup Series Champion, and is arguably the most recognizable NASCAR driver ever. He’s still just as present in pop culture as he was during his heyday, and that’s truly incredible when you consider that the world lost the NASCAR great over 25 years ago.
Most fans just knew Earnhardt as the race car driver. We’ve slowly learned a whole lot more about the man, thanks to documentaries and Dale Earnhardt Jr. himself telling stories about his father. It’s still shocking to think about his tragic passing at the Daytona 500 in February of 2001, and this video below is a reminder of how precious life is.
Just a couple of months before his death, Dale Earnhardt was deer hunting in Iowa, and it was captured on camera for Realtree’s Monster Bucks series. For him and those at Realtree, it was just another trophy hunt at the time. But armed with hindsight, it captures one of the last times that Earnhardt ever put on camo and went out to bag and tag a deer.
Realtree originally aired the video following his death, and included somber commentary over the hunt like this:
“Outside of spending time with wife and his children, and certainly standing in the winner’s circle, we feel like Dale was happiest when he was hunting, when he was outdoors, experiencing God’s great creations. It brought out a side of Dale that we grew to love over the years.”
Though it was cold, and the conditions were as brutal as they get it, Dale Earnhardt loved every second of the hunt, and was grateful to bring down the 10-pointer. Knowing it’s the last buck he would ever bring down makes the video bittersweet to watch, but it’s still a special piece of media:
“In December 2000, Dale Earnhardt Sr. joined Bill Jordan and Ned Yost for a late-season whitetail hunt in Iowa. After having to leave camp briefly for an appearance, Dale returned to Iowa and got his opportunity at a big 10-point whitetail.
It would become Dale’s final trophy deer hunt with Realtree and one of the most meaningful hunts preserved in the Realtree Monster Bucks archives.”
There’s no doubt that Dale Earnhardt loved the outdoors.
He even passed it down to his son, Dale Jr., who has shared that he has a deep appreciation for hunting because it’s an experience that he and his dad shared when he was younger. Thus, he admittedly thinks about his father a lot anytime he’s up in a tree stand.
Dale Jr. talked about the emotion he feels hunting on the Dale Jr. Download a couple of years back:
“I think about everything. Now it’s peaceful, but in my mind I’m thinking about (everything). I’ll be honest with you. I’m not trying to get mushy here, but I think about my dad a lot honestly. A lot when I’m deer hunting, because he loved hunting.”
Dale went on to describe he and his father’s early hunting adventures, saying that his father primarily used chain up deer stands. For those that don’t know, there aren’t much to chain up stands (though they are better than climbing stands). There’s just a little platform for your feet, a little cushion to sit on, and that’s it.
It’s really only designed for one person to use, but Dale Sr. apparently thought otherwise. He would just have a Dale Jr. lay down on the foot platform (at 5 or 6 years old) below while Sr. would sit on the cushion and hunt, and Dale Jr. confessed that he hated it – but did it because he wanted to spend time with his father:
“When he would leave to go hunting without me, I’d be like, ‘I want to go.’ Then when I got older, I wanted to like hunting and I just couldn’t. I just couldn’t get to where I loved it and wanted to go do it. But I kept pushing myself because it was something my dad loved, and I wanted to love it too.”
And the video that Realtree posted above definitely shows just how much hunting and being in the great outdoors meant to Dale Earnhardt. To go out in subzero conditions with 70 mile per hour wind gusts, you have to love it. Or in other words… The Intimidator was rarely ever intimidated himself.
