Many people around the world enjoy the sport of racing. Whether it’s watching it or being in the driver’s seat people enjoy racing because of its excitement. Stock car racing is one of the most well known racing events in the United States, drivers compete on circular tracks at various events. Dale Earnhardt was a stock car racer who was a legend to his fans because of his aggressive racing style and he climbed the charts quickly as a rookie.
Dale Earnhardt had a great career. He climbed the charts with haste and his fans loved him. Ralph Dale Earnhardt was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina. Ralph better known as Dale was born on April twentyninth in 1951. In 1967 Dale Earnhardt dropped out of high school to pursue racing. Dale is best known for his career as a stock car driver for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). He got good at it quick and never gave up. He didn’t let anything get him down either. He had many fans that loved his racing. He worked hard towards his dream to become the best stock car racer. In 1978 something big happened for Earnhardt.
Rod Osterlund invited him to race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. Osterlund was a team owner who needed a driver to fill in and he saw a lot of potential in the young driver. Dale was getting to race in a sportsman series race for NASCAR so he quickly took the offer, it was the big break he was waiting for. In that race Dale got second place and was offered to race again as a part time driver. He kept racing as a part-time driver until in 1979 he landed a full-time position. His first race series was the Winston Cup Series. During that year he got top ten a total of seventeen times. He won the Rookie of the Year title for that year. Then in 1980 he got nineteen top-five finishes along with five victories. That year he won his first Winston cup title. After that he raced six more Winston Cup titles which was the career mark of Richard Petty. Dale was very successful in his career but still struggled at the Daytona 500 (Britanica,2018). In 1981 the year started great for Earnhardt, but in the middle of the season Osterlund, the team owner sold the team to J.D. Stacy. This made Earnhardt feel betrayed by Osterlund and ruined his year. Earnhardt worked his hardest and raced the best he could but couldn’t win a race.
Every race he drove frustrated him more until August that season, Earnhardt finished a race and immediately quit the team. He finished that season with Richard Childress but left a year later for Bud Moore because of his sponsor with Wrangler Jeans (Schmitz,2001). On the track Dale was best known as the “Intimidator.” He was an aggressive driver who didn’t care about anything on the track, not even the bumps and spin-outs that come with stock car racing. He drove a black Chevrolet Monte Carlo, the number three car. His car intimidated any driver who saw it in the rear view mirror. During his career Earnhardt was the most popular and controversial driver. Earnhardt raced 676 Winston cup races but only won 76 of them. He gained more than forty million dollars in prize money. As Earnhardt raced he got better and gained the skills to defeat his opponents (Britanica,2018).
Dale Earnhardt had and easy childhood, he was close to his parents and loved racing. North Carolina was full of auto racing culture so it didn’t take long for Earnhardt to become interested. Every weekend drivers met up to race souped-up cars, they would race on country roads and dirt tracks. Ralph Lee Earnhardt, Dales Father, was into racing too. He owned an auto shop where he worked on his cars to race. Because of this Dale has always wanted to race cars but wasn’t old enough to drive them, he could only wait til he was old enough to race. As a child Dale spent a lot of time with his father and his race cars. He loved to help with the cars however he could. All he wanted to do was follow in his father’s footsteps, he wanted to be like his father and race cars.
The only people he wanted to be around were racers because of his love for the sport. Because he was around his father and other racers he learned a lot which helped him become who he was. He might not have become a racer if he hadn’t grown up around it. Dale was always close to his father, he wanted to be like him and race. When he was fourteen he wanted to give his father a gift and surprise him. He got all of the parts for a new engine and built it in his living room one night. When his father woke up the next morning he got up to find a new engine ready to go in his car. Each day Dale and his father grew closer. His father was a great inspiration to Dale and made him who he was. In ninth grade Dale dropped out of high school and his father didn’t agree, this made them grow distant. As Dale aged he learned more about racing and automobiles. He knew how to work with cars at an early age because of his father. (Abbey,2002)
Earnhardt had a rough family life. He got married three times and had four children. By the 1970’s Dale started putting a lot of time and effort into racing. So much time he didn’t have time for much else. Dale had been remarried to his second wife a couple years but racing had messed up his family life and they got divorced. The divorce was hard for Dale but he was afraid that if he didn’t spent a lot of time racing that he wouldn’t get his big break as a racecar driver. He was so afraid of missing it he never stopped racing. It didn’t take long for Dale to get over the divorce because all he wanted to do was race and would give anything to do it. At the age of forty-three Dale’s father passed away in 1973. He was working on his car when he had a heart attack.
The loss devastated Earnhardt and he took it bad, but that didn’t stop him from getting better, he quit his jobs and put most of his time into racing. He took ownership of his father’s shop as well as his cars. All he wanted was to take on his father’s legacy. The hardest thing for Dale losing his father was that he was just starting to make a name for himself as a racer. Though he had a rough family life Earnhardt didn’t give up on racing. He never gave up because he knew he was capable (Abbey,2002).
Throughout his career Earnhardt had problems, whether it’s his car breaking or much worse, he had hard times. In 1996 Earnhardt’s season started great. He had won two races already early in the season and was doing good until Talladega in Alabama. He was involved in a crash that flipped his car many times. He held on tight to the steering wheel and never let go until the car stopped. He walked away from that crash with a fractured collar bone and started racing again two weeks later. Even with the good start Earnhardt did not win the season. In fact he never won another race that season. Every race that Earnhardt drove helped him get better at racing. He had won at least once at every track but one, the Daytona 500. Held at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona, Florida it is NASCAR’s most popular event.
Throughout all of his successes he never could win the Daytona 500. But in 1998 he would be competing for the twentieth time. He was competing with Jeff Gordon for most of the race until Gordon damaged his car and Earnhardt took his first victory at the Daytona 500. In the 2001 season NASCAR passed new regualtions for the cars. The cars were made slower to keep the cars closer together to make the race more interesting, but this proved to be dangerous at the Daytona 500. Earnhardt was in third place battling with Sterling Martin. They bumped cars and Dale’s car was sent flying into the wall. Paramedics say that he died instantly due to injuries. This was the first race played live on national television. It was hard on his family as well as his fans. They couldn’t believe he died. Earnhardt had problems but he learned from them. Problems shaped who he was to get better. He just couldn’t walk away from all of them (Abbey,2002).
Dale Earnhardt was a great racer, He never gave up no matter what happened. He was a quick learner and had a great racing style that his fans loved. He did what ever to be the champion and beat his rivals. Dale Earnhardt had an amazing life and left behind a long lasting legacy. His fans still love him and his name will go down in history for a long time.
