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acegear
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Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 973
Location: Enumclaw, WA
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 Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 7:56 pm Post subject: Classic Driver: Dale Earnhardt, Sr. |
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Dale Earnhardt, Sr. grew up exposed to stock car racing from an early age through his father Ralph. Working by day and racing by night, Dale soon earned a reputation for tenatious racing through out his home town of Kannapolis, NC. Since he was self financed, there were many times he would have to borrow money to keep his race car going weekends only to pay off the debts on Monday with his winnings.
Starting in Hobby-class cars, Dale soon moved to the Sportsman class. After his father passed away in 1973, Dale became even more determined to succeed. He finally earned the opportunity make his first Cup start in 1975 driving Ed Negre's Dodge to a 22nd place finish in the World 600 at Charlotte. However over the next three years, Dale was limited to a total of eight more starts, the last of which was the 1978 Dixie 500 at Atlanta in which he finished fourth.
Dale finally earned a full time Cup ride in 1979 driving for Rod Osterlund. In his first full season of competition, Dale scored his initial Winston Cup win at Bristol in just his 16th career start. Eight races later, he notched his first career pole at Riverside and by the end of the season, he had driven to 11 Top-5 finishes beating Harry Gant, Terry Labonte and Joe Millikan for the rookie title in one of the most competitive rookie battles ever.
Building on the previous years success, Dale beat tough veteran Cale Yarborough for the 1980 Cup Series championship to become the only driver ever to win the rookie crown and the series' championship in consecutive seasons.
Dale left the team in 1981 to race for Richard Childress. However, by the end of the season Childress realized that his cars were not performing at a level that justified a talent like Earnhardt's, so he urged Dale to accept an opportunity to drive for the well-established team of Bud Moore and big-dollar sponsor, Wrangler. Dale decided to accept a place with Moore Racing and drove the #15 Ford to 3 wins over the next two seasons.
Seeing that Childress had built his team into a championship contender, Dale rejoined Richard Childress Racing in 1984. Two years later Dale captured his second championship which would be the first of six titles over the next 9 seasons for Dale and Childress. During this partnership, and in addition to his six titles, Dale became the only 3 times winner of “The Winston”, the only 6 time winner of the Bud Shootout, and a 4 time IROC champion.
In the span of his career, Dale won nearly every major race ever offered by NASCAR. After 20 tries, Dale finally captured the one race that had eluded him, the Daytona 500. The 1998 Daytona 500 became his 71st win spanning 575 NASCAR starts. Unfortunately, the race he loved the most would be the one which would cost him his life. Crashing into the wall in the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 would bring the end to one of the most successful careers in NASCAR’s modern era.
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