Dale Earnhardt Sr. is one of the greatest motorsport icons to ever live. Above his seven-record Cup Series championships and multiple elusive victories, he was a great father. Talking to former racer Kenny Wallace recently, his daughter Kelley narrated a story that showcased the softer side of the man who everyone knew largely as the “Intimidator”.
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Kelley recalled a message from her father when she was enrolled in UNC Wilmington, “It said… I don’t wanna cry. It said, ‘It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I forgot what you look like.’ Because I never came home. I got to college and I was like I’m outta here. I’m at Wilmington, I’m at the beach, I got a full-time job at the mall…So I got that flower, and I was like, it’s been forever since I’ve been home.”
You guys are gonna love our next “@Kenny_Wallace Conversation!”
It’s almost 90-minutes with @EarnhardtKelley!
Great family stories about Dale Sr & @DaleJr & she describes why they aren’t #NASCAR Cup owners … yet.
It drops tomorrow on YouTube & podcast!
Here’s a clip talking… pic.twitter.com/3shAINEBXJ
— The Kenny Wallace Show (@KWallaceShow) June 13, 2024
Fighting through the tears, Kelley continued to reveal how she’d put forward two conditions to her father if he wanted her to move back home. The first was that she could race cars and the second was that she could have her own apartment. Earnhardt Sr. had no option but to comply and Kelley moved back closer to her old man. She finished her college career at UNC in 1995.
She is now the CEO of JR Motorsports and manages the organization along with her brother Dale Earnhardt Jr. She joined the team in 2001 as a General Manager and helped the company bloom under her able leadership. Major magazines across the country including ESPN, Charlotte Business Journal, and the Associated Press have identified her as one of the most powerful women in NASCAR.
Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s tricky relationship with his father as a youngster
In an interview with Graham Bensinger in 2023, Dale Jr. revealed how Junior wouldn’t have gotten into racing in the first place if he hadn’t seen it as the only way to win his father’s approval. He noted that it was only when he started racing and winning events he actually had things to talk to his father about. “He’d come into the shop and want to know what happened. So I got more and more into, ‘Hey! I want to do racing because it gets me closer to Dad’,” he said.
Unlike Kelley, Earnhardt Sr.’s love for his son was built upon their joint passion for the engine. Once Dale Jr. got into motorsports their bond grew stronger than ever. The scenes of Earnhardt Sr. hugging his son tightly after his first-ever Cup Series win at Texas in 2000 serve as a testament to the same. Regardless of his approach, the Earnhardt family can’t help but still sorely miss his absence.
