When Dale Earnhardt Jr. entered the 2015 Daytona 500, he was in for a surprise. The No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro SS that his team had built for him seemed a tad bit more extraordinary than his usual cars. He raced with it, won the qualifying race, and finished third in the Great American Race. He did not know that the magic had only just begun.
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The car then carried him to victories in Daytona and Talladega, along with other top-5 finishes. He managed to secure an average finish rate of 1.75 in the four superspeedway races that season. Following the second race in Talladega, Dale Jr.’s crew chief, Greg Ives, decided that they would be reusing the car in 2016.
This was an unusual decision since teams almost always go for brand-new cars at the beginning of each season. But this one… Chassis No. 88-872. It was special, and everyone on the team recognized it. This was when Dale Jr. decided to name the beloved car after Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly a plane across the Atlantic.
He said, “A car gets named when you drive it long enough to see a personality, typically. We’re going to take the same car because it was so successful.” Keeping up its promise, Amelia took the driver to yet another Daytona Duel win in 2016. But what followed was a tale of fateful tragedy.
The downfall of Amelia and its eventual fate in Dale Jr.’s racecar graveyard
The car got loose in the Daytona 500 and eliminated itself after crashing against the wall. A similar incident occurred in the race at Talladega. It had its nose damaged after a crash in Turn 2. It wrecked again, with Carl Edwards this time, when it came out from repairs. Dale Jr. and the rest of his team were left bewildered.
They decided that the gamble that they took on Amelia was proving to be too costly and decided to retire it. The driver heartbrokenly lamented, “We’re not going to be naming cars anymore. We knew as soon as we did that, it sort of took off and put a lot of pressure on that car and the team. These cars just don’t stick around long enough to get names.”
The final crash with Edwards heavily damaged the car’s center section. So, the Hendrick Motorsports team couldn’t have rebuilt the car even if it had wanted to. The engine, the transmission, and every other useful part were removed from the car before being sent to Dale Jr.’s racecar graveyard at Dirty Mo Acres. It is where it rests peacefully to this day.
