“Dad Would Be Livid”: Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s Half-Brother Slams Stepmother Teresa’s Attempt to Rezone Dale Sr.’s 400-Acre Estate

Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t the only member of the family who is at odds with his father’s widow.

Kerry Earnhardt, Dale Jr.’s older half-brother, took to social media on Thursday, criticizing a move by Teresa Earnhardt, the elder Earnhardt’s widow, to allow a 400-acre “data center” to be built on her late husband’s property.

Teresa Earnhardt has asked the town of Mooresville, North Carolina, for a zoning variance that would allow a $30 billion data center to be built on land she owns that was previously purchased by her late husband.

Kerry Earnhardt wrote on X, “Dad would be livid, his name is associated in this title! Data Centers don’t belong in neighborhoods, natural resources are depleted, wildlife uprooted! The landscape, lives that call this home, forever changed. Build homes w/people loving the land we live as land it’s intended!”

Kerry joins his half-brother in bitter feelings toward their father’s widow. Dale Jr. has spoken several times about how he and his sister, Kelley Earnhardt Miller, have been deprived of visiting their father’s grave or prevented from taking certain things of their father’s that have sentimental value.

The Mooresville Board of Commissioners is slated to meet next Monday, August 4, to hear Teresa Earnhardt’s intended plan for the property, a 399-acre plot of undeveloped land on the east side of town that she wants to call “Mooresville Technology Park.” A final vote is expected to take place on September 15 for either approval or denial of the proposal.

Several dozen neighbors who live adjacent to or near her property have publicly protested, saying they don’t want the data center in their neighborhood. They believe that rezoning Mrs. Earnhardt’s property would lead to additional development and would greatly change the area’s current rural scope.

“This is not about Dale Earnhardt,” Kerry Pennell, who lives on Patterson Farm Road near the site and opposes Teresa Earnhardt’s plan, told The Charlotte Observer. “This is not about Teresa Earnhardt. This is about the invasion by the town of our backyards. And it’s about the future of Mooresville.”

Kerry Earnhardt told The Charlotte Observer, “Frankly, I’m ashamed our family name is involved in the request to rezone a community that is thriving as a rural residential/agriculture zone to be changed to industrial.”

Proposed development will reportedly generate hundreds of high-paying jobs

The developer, Tract, of Denver, Colorado, has stated on its website that the project would bring 277 “recession-resistant” jobs, with nearly 200 of those jobs reportedly paying $125,000 per year. It also claims it will generate several hundred million dollars in tax revenue for Mooresville, Iredell County and local school districts.

Kerry Earnhardt will attend Monday’s meeting, The Charlotte Observer reported. “I look forward to Monday’s meeting at the Mooresville Town Hall,” he posted on his Facebook page.