Dale Earnhardt Jr. Was Forced to Defend Sterling Marlin From Death Threats in Wake of 2001 Daytona 500

The tragic tale of the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 still haunts many to date. It was the day when Dale Earnhardt Sr. tragically lost his life after being entangled in a racing incident. While the NASCAR world mourned the passing of the Intimidator, quite a lot of people began targeting the person Earnhardt Sr. wrecked with. The man in question was Sterling Marlin.

Decades after the incident, Dale Earnhardt Jr. invited Marlin over to his podcast and shared a story of how he had to defend Marlin from the numerous death threats he had been receiving after the 2001 Daytona wreck.

During the episode, Junior said, “I don’t remember if it was a I don’t think it was a phone call. I think me and you (Marlin) saw each other in person, might have been as soon as we got to the track on Thursday. We had a press conference. And we were going to speak and Sterling came up to me and said, ‘Hey, could you do me a favour?'”

Junior added, “He’s like, ‘I’m getting literal death threats about this. About, people thinking I had something to do with this.’ And I was like, ‘No sh*t.’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s it’s bothered me and I think you’re the only one that could fix it…'”

“So I go on to the press conference, and I said, I couldn’t believe I needed to, I had to say this and that at that moment, but I was like, ‘whoever’s got a problem with Sterling or think Sterling has some role in this needs to get rid of that notion altogether.'”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. explains how he felt sympathetic toward Sterling Marlin

Speaking further into the conversation, Junior went on to explain that he had felt a sense of sympathy regarding the crash for Marlin. He expressed that everyone who has driven a race car, particularly those on the racetrack at that moment, understands that they were all pushing themselves to the limit.

As it was the final lap of the race, and everyone was giving their all to reach their goals, the Hall of Famer characterized the incident as a “racing crash”, which he believed occurs in every other race.

“But I just hope that you’ve had I hope that you’ve carried no problems or carried no sliver of guilt or any kind of any kind of thing going forward with that. Because I haven’t I’ve always thought the world to you and felt we were all very unfortunate. You know, to in that moment, various degrees of unfortunate.”

Of course, being the one who was blamed for the incident at that time would have been a morale-crushing experience for Marlin. But it was good to see that Junior did not hold any grudge against Marlin and accepted that it was a racing incident. If not then hopefully, Junior’s kind words can help put the rest of the emotions dragged on from that day finally put to rest for Marlin.