The Earnhardts are royalty in American motorsports. Thanks to the success of Dale Earnhardt Sr. and his son, Dale Earnhardt Jr., fans love and celebrate the family to the moon and back. But not everyone with the name Earnhardt is in their good books.
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Dale Sr. created the race team Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI) in 1980. His dream was simple — Build it into a top NASCAR team along with his then-wife Teresa Earnhardt and eventually pass it down to his children.
For the next two decades, he toiled hard at it and achieved his goal. Dale Jr. had grown up to be a fine gentleman and an excellent race car driver by 2000. DEI was beginning to challenge for Cup Series titles. Everything was as Earnhardt had envisioned.
But the trajectory of the outfit soon changed. With the legend passing away in 2001, Teresa became the sole owner of the team. A good point to note now is that Dale Jr., Kelley, and Kerry are the stepchildren of Teresa. For this reason or more, she refused to grant them an ownership stake in the team. The tension between them began building publicly and by 2006 things boiled over.
The fandom stood behind the beloved successor to Dale Sr.’s throne, Dale Jr. It hated Teresa for everything she was. She nudged things over the edge when she claimed rights to Dale Jr.’s name itself.
The driver emotionally said in an interview with Charlotte Observer that he wished he didn’t have the name at all. She later publicly stated that he was focused more on being a rockstar than a driver.
Teresa forced Dale Jr. to cut ties with Dale Earnhardt Inc.
This was when Dale Jr. and his sister Kelley decided that they’d taken enough from their stepmother. They pressed further for a majority stake in DEI and when refused, they decided to cut ties with it.
And so, the announcement came in 2007 that Dale Jr. would be driving for a different team in 2008. Through the rest of the season, his No. 8 began failing during races mysteriously and the fans blamed Teresa for it.
Dale Jr. was to drive the No. 88 car with Hendrick Motorsports beginning in 2008. Fans rallied with demands for her to release the No. 8 but this only instigated her more and she retained it.
The number would never be seen racing full-time in the Cup Series again. This is where the story takes a dark turn. DEI was the legacy that Dale Earnhardt Sr. created for himself and his children.
By 2009, that legacy was being rolled around in the mud. Teresa merged the team with Chip Ganassi Racing and a new outfit in the name of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing was formed.
This did not last long either. In 2014, she stopped all affiliation with Ganassi and disappeared into thin air along with the Earnhardt portion of the team’s name. In the meantime, Dale Jr. was flourishing on the race track. He made a strong name for himself, won a great many victories, and filled the hearts of fans.
Dale Sr. had always wanted DEI to go into the hands of his children after him. While that hadn’t become a reality, Dale Jr. becoming a loved personality and a fantastic team owner with JR Motorsports along with Kelley goes a long way. Unfortunately, Teresa wasn’t completely out of the picture yet.
Teresa continues earning the wrath of fans
She returned in 2016 and got into a legal battle with Kerry for creating a company called “Earnhardt Collection” that builds homes. She contended that this route did not fit Dale Sr.’s legacy.
This was but the least of problems that she stirred up out of nothing. Most recently, she came under the wrath of the fandom for filing to rezone 399 acres of the family’s farmland into an industrial park.
Notably, Dale Sr. loved spending time on this land. It is no secret that he enjoyed an outdoor lifestyle. Now, these actions are what have led fans to use the nickname, “The Wicked Witch of the South”, to address her. It may be a little extreme but it ought to be remembered that it is the blood of Dale Sr. that she put through hell. There is no defending that.
DEI is no more than a page in the history book now, all thanks to her. A sweet little victory came in the way of Dale Jr. and the fans earlier this year when Teresa finally released the No. 8 trademark after holding it for over two decades. The icon was quick to apply for its ownership under the name of DEJ Holdings. He is expected to acquire it in 2025 and this is a huge deal for NASCAR.
Teresa once said that DEI would simply “make” another Dale Jr. if he ever left the team. Now, this was probably where she failed. There was nobody else like him out there. He was voted to be the Most Popular Driver for 15 consecutive years. For the fans, no one else was good enough to fill Dale Sr.’s shoes except his son. It is a sad thing that Teresa failed to see things that way.
