Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
- Dale Earnhardt and his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. weren’t close when the boy was young.
- Their relationship strengthened after Dale Jr. started racing professional, though the sport wasn’t the focus of the father-son relationship.
- How Dale Jr. continues to grapple with his father’s death two decades later.
Dale Earnhardt became one of the winningest drivers in NASCAR history, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. followed as one of the most popular. But while the father and son formed a potent pair on the race track, their relationship away from it was often stuck in gear.
The new Prime Video docuseries Earnhardt profiles the famous NASCAR family, examining Dale Sr.’s racing legacy and life away from the sport. The series, which started Thursday, promises to reexamine the seven-time champion through “rare archival footage, thrilling races and emotionally revealing interviews from Earnhardt’s children, rivals, and closest friends.”
This includes Dale Jr., who grappled with his dad’s fatal accident in the 2001 Daytona 500 as he forged his own successful racing career. But while the pair are forever tied by their lineage, their bond was marked by surprising polarization and took years to develop.
Growing up, Dale Jr. had a distant relationship with his dad
Unlike Dale Sr., who picked up his dogged determination to win from his father, star short-track driver Ralph Earnhardt, Dale Jr. wasn’t obsessed with racing initially.
He was the second of his dad’s four kids, and after Dale Sr. divorced his mom, Brenda Gee, she was initially the one to raise Dale Jr. and his older sister, Kelley. But then, in May 1981, Brenda lost her home in a ruinous house fire. Dale Jr., then 6, and Kelley, then 8, moved back in their dad after that.
With the elder Earnhardt fully dedicating himself to NASCAR after his first championship in 1980, he was often absent from their childhood. He also became frustrated that his son preferred to be outside playing with friends instead of working inside his race shop.
When Dale Jr. was in seventh grade, Dale Sr. and his third wife, Teresa, enrolled him in military school on account of behavioral issues. While Dale Jr. did improve his discipline and became an average “C/D student,” he remained disconnected from his father. During a 2019 appearance on In Depth with Graham Bensinger, he revealed that Dale Sr. even missed his high school graduation.
“We didn’t go hunting together, he didn’t take me on trips. I was never—like when he would go do things, I was never like an idea or a consideration,” Dale Jr. said.
Largely in an attempt to bring them closer, Dale Jr. began forging his own career in racing. And, it turned out, he was pretty good at it.
Racing “completely changed” their bond
After competing in late model cars with Kelley and their half-brother, Kerry, during the early 1990s, Dale Jr. made the jump to NASCAR’s Busch Grand National Series—the sport’s top development level.
Despite his lack of success in late models—he won only four of 159 races—Dale Jr. began driving a car for his father’s Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI) team. In 1998, he won his first race then six more en route to the Busch championship. He won the title again the next year.
Appearing on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Dale Jr. said his father-son bond underwent a noticeable shift around this time. “So he is thinking ‘Damn! This little s––t can drive a car!’ And that’s when our relationship completely changed,” he told Rogan. “That’s when [he] had his arm around me, we were doing s––t together, we had sponsor deals and promotions together. We were doing photo shoots together. I saw him all the time, and we talked about all kinds of [things]. We talked about life, girls, everything but racing. We didn’t talk about racing much, which is fine. And it was awesome.”
Dale Jr. began driving for DEI in the Cup series as well, piloting the No. 8 Budweiser car. The vehicle became nearly as popular as Dale Sr.’s black No. 3 Goodwrench Chevy.
In 2001, the father and son even raced on the same four-driver team for the annual Rolex 24 sports car race. But while the pair seemed closer than ever, unimaginable tragedy loomed just ahead.
Dale Jr. carried the family legacy after his father died
NASCAR experienced one of the darkest days in its history on February 18, 2001, when Dale Sr. died from injuries he sustained in a last-lap crash during the season-opening Daytona 500.
By the time Dale Jr., who finished second in the race, arrived at the nearby Halifax Medical Center, responders had already ceased efforts to resuscitate his father.
Suddenly, he inherited Dale Sr.’s legacy as the “Intimidator” and the legion of devoted fans that came with it. “I went back in my bus in my room and shut the door into my bedroom and just sat there, and I thought to myself in that very moment, ‘I’m gonna have to do this by myself, you know, the rest of my life,’” he told ESPN. “Having dad was like a cheat sheet. Having dad was like knowing all the answers to everything.”
Although there were extreme highs—he won the next race at Daytona in July 2001 and got his own Daytona 500 victory in 2004—Dale Jr. largely struggled over the next decade-plus. He won only four races from 2005 through 2013 and finished outside the top 10 of the point standings six times.
His demeanor also changed, going from exuberant up-and-comer to mature veteran focused on his job. However, some fans began to mistake this new perspective, accelerated by his father’s death, for a lack of passion. Dale Jr. vehemently dismissed the idea. “I hate to keep going back to this, but I ain’t seen one guy go through a situation like that and not come out different in his disposition,” he said of his father’s death in 2011. “But I still love the sport, and I’d do anything for it.”
Although he never won a Cup Series championship, Dale Jr. won 26 races during his career, including another Daytona 500 in 2014. After missing the second half of the 2016 season because of concussion symptoms—which he documented in his book Racing to the Finish: My Story—he announced his retirement from full-time racing in 2017.
Dale Jr. is now raising his own family
Now 50, Dale Jr. was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2021. It marked a reunion of father and son—in the history books, at least. Dale Sr. was a member of the inaugural class of 2010. The younger Earnhardt has became a color commentator in retirement and is set to assume the role for Prime Video’s NASCAR coverage this summer.
Dale Jr. is also a father, himself. He and his wife, Amy Earnhardt, are raising their daughters Isla, 7, and Nicole, 4.
While he hasn’t forgotten about his father’s absences early in his life, Dale Jr. has largely forgiven his dad and now remembers him as the proud parent that celebrated his early racing milestones. His own parenting isn’t in opposition to how he was raised, either.
“It doesn’t cross my mind like, ‘Man, I’m gonna do it differently, you know, than it happened to me.’ I don't even realize how it happened to me until I sit down and think about it,” he told Bensinger. “I don’t even consider it in day to day, so when I deal with Isla, really I think, ‘God, I wish dad could be here to see her,’ you know, because I know that he probably isn’t that same person. When he died, he wasn’t that guy that would miss his son’s graduation.”
Dale Jr. is expected to share even more about his father’s family and racing legacy in Earnhardt. The first two episodes of the four-part docuseries began streaming Thursday on Prime Video.
Tyler Piccotti joined the Biography.com staff as an Associate News Editor and is now the News and Culture Editor. He previously worked as a reporter and copy editor for a daily newspaper recognized by the Associated Press Sports Editors. In his current role, he shares the true stories behind your favorite movies and TV shows and profiles rising musicians, actors, and athletes. When he's not working, you can find him at the nearest amusement park or movie theater and cheering on his favorite teams.
