The bright lights at the Bristol Motor Speedway shone hard after a tough and grueling short track race in 1995. Dale Earnhardt Sr., who had finished as the runner-up behind Terry Labonte, climbed out of his car ready to speak to the press. Just then, a water bottle hit him squarely on his face with some force. It wasn’t a fan. It was a fellow NASCAR driver.
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An angry Rusty Wallace had launched the water bottle towards Earnhardt. He was convinced that the legendary driver had betrayed him.
Jeff Gordon was a young and upcoming driver at the time. He was outperforming every other driver on the track, and this had made both Earnhardt and Wallace overtly jealous. They’d wanted to put the youngster “back in his place” and had made a secret pact ahead of the event.
The deal was to rough Gordon up, remove him from contention, and then fight it out between themselves. All went well as per the agreement until Earnhardt caused Wallace to crash into the wall on Lap 33 and wrecked his chances of a good finish. He ultimately limped home in 21st place and took the bottle in hand to let his anger be known.
In a recent episode of the “Dale Jr. Download” podcast, Wallace retold this story to Dale Earnhardt Jr., the supposed antagonist’s son. He went, “I go spin it around and hit the wall. I limped that thing around the whole race. I am frustrated. My son Greg walks up to me with just a regular bottle of water. I was hot and sweating.
“He gives me the bottle, and I am drinking the water. I start walking down to your old man.”
Earnhardt had been surrounded by a pile of people. He continued, “What I was thinking was, ‘We had a deal, dude! What the hell are you thinking? We had a deal! You’re the one who started this whole thing. You’re the one sick of Jeff Gordon!”
Getting 10 feet from the Intimidator, he’d called out to him loudly and got no response.
Wallace did so again and still got no response. This was when he threw the bottle to get the man’s attention. He said, “I meant to hit him in the shoulder, but it hit him right in the center of the forehead. It was game on. He blew through that crowd and came over and asked, ‘What’s wrong?’ I said, ‘What’s that all about, man?'”
The two had gone on to exchange some strong words and threats with each other before getting pulled away. Fortunately, a phone call the following morning settled things amicably between them. But what ought to be strongly underlined in this story is how much of a threat Earnhardt and Wallace saw Gordon as.
Wallace noted, “At that particular point, man. He had it. He could not take that Gordon stuff, that young kid coming and kicking our asses. And he was! Jeff was just putting it on us, boy! We were sick of it.”
Gordon would go on to win that year’s championship — something Earnhardt and Wallace likely didn’t take too well on a personal level.
