MOORESVILLE, N.C. (June 29, 2017) – The legend of Dale Earnhardt Jr. began way earlier than July 7, 2001, but for all intents and purposes, that day cemented his legacy and started the cataclysmic rise to NASCAR stardom that everyone had so often predicted.
As he embarks on his JR Nation #Appreci88ion Tour this weekend at Daytona International Speedway, a bit of scene-setting is in order.
After winning two straight NASCAR Xfinity Series titles for Dale Earnhardt Inc., the then-26-year-old son of NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt stepped into the No. 8 Budweiser Chevrolet owned by Dale Earnhardt Inc. for the 2000 season. He won at Texas in the spring for his first career Cup victory, took the checkered again at Richmond, and scored an upset to win the NASCAR All-Star Race at Charlotte in May.
Despite two victories and the All-Star triumph, it was a typical rookie season. Of his seven DNFs that season, five were in crashes, and he notched three top-five and five top-10 finishes on the way to a 16th-place finish in the final point standing.
Opening the 2001 season at Daytona, the third-generation star pushed DEI teammate Michael Waltrip to victory, unaware of the drama unfolding behind him. His father, Dale Sr. was acting as a buffer to his two cars and racing in a beehive as the field hurtled toward the checkered flag. Slight contact from a competitor sent the elder Earnhardt toward the wall in Turn 4, where he hit nearly head-on.
As Waltrip crossed the finish line, with Earnhardt Jr. right behind, Dale Sr. suffered fatal injuries in that innocuous-looking crash. What should have been among the proudest moment of Earnhardt Jr.’s budding career vanished in a wave of pain, numbness and utter confusion.
You all know the story from there.
From the next race on, Earnhardt Jr.’s life was a constant turmoil of traveling, racing, doing media and the thousand-and-one details that is the life of a modern-day NASCAR driver. There was no chance to grieve properly, put feelings in their proper place or even deal with the loss of the man who gave him what would turn out to be an 18-year career. It is that career--the good times and the bad times and especially all those who made a difference in those 18 years and may never have known it--he is celebrating in the JR Nation #Appreci88ion Tour.
During the next five races, Earnhardt Jr. struggled. He finished 43rd at Rockingham to kick off that string, and wound up with a 29.2 average finish by the time the series got to Texas for the seventh race of the season. It started to turn around after that, as Earnhardt Jr. reeled off two top-fives and four top-10s in the next 10 races and climbed back from 26th to 11th in the point standings.
Fast-forward to July 7, 2001.
Back to Daytona.
Some of that blinding pain from the events in February had eased, but it was still near the surface. Earnhardt Jr. had settled down and took comfort in the routine of being a driver in NASCAR’s top series.
When he and his team arrived in Daytona for the summer race, there was some business to attend to before the weekend got going. A bunch of them piled into a passenger car for a trip to Turns 3 and 4 on Thursday before the on-track activity started. He got out of the car and walked around, sorting feelings as he went.
“Everybody got out, spent some time there,” he told former crew chief Steve Letarte in a 2015 interview. “I went off by myself, just seeing how I would feel. I didn’t want to fall apart in front of all my guys and the rest of the garage. It was good. I was like, ‘Dad loved this place, I’m still at peace with this place, still love this place and look forward to racing here many more years.”
When the lights went on and the 2001 Pepsi Firecracker 400 started to take shape, it was clear that Earnhardt Jr.’s Budweiser Chevrolet was the class of the field. Yet, with seven laps remaining under caution, he was sitting sixth on the track and would have just six laps to get to the front.
He only needed two.
When the green waved on that final restart, he took off wide-open, and by the time the field got around to the start/finish line, he was third. A few swift moves later, as the pack thundered into Turn 3, he was in position, and by the time they got to Turn 4 headed for the stripe, he was the leader.
Waltrip restarted 14th, and DEI’s third car, with Steve Park aboard, was 22nd. There was no immediate help coming. Yet, as the laps wound down and Earnhardt Jr. continued to lead, there was Waltrip, pushing past Bobby Labonte to take up station on the rear decklid of the No. 8.
From that moment, it was clear that this would be a victory for the ages. And it was, it surely was.
Earnhardt Jr.’s reaction when he saw the checkered was unadulterated joy mixed with a palpable relief that showed through the in-car camera. The whooping and hollering just added to the excitement. Tony Eury Sr., known as “Pops,” had tears in his eyes during his pit-road interview, and Tony Eury Jr. was openly weeping. There was truly not a dry eye in the house, and we haven’t even gotten to the scene on the infield yet.
As chaotic as the next several minutes were, with Earnhardt Jr. sliding to a stop on the infield grass, getting out of his car and jumping up to the roof to celebrate with the packed house and Waltrip coming alongside to join him and the rest of the DEI teams—and a substantial portion of the field—the post-race interviews were pure, raw emotion.
“He had a good teacher,” said Eury Sr. from pit road when asked how the then-26-year-old Earnhardt Jr. had pulled off the victory from sixth place with six laps remaining. “Listen to those fans...they love that kid to death!”
That’s a fact. The crowd stayed right where it was to watch the scene unfold. Hardly anyone left, choosing to stay and watch the moment that Dale Earnhardt Jr. stepped out of the shadow of his famous father and into the limelight on his own.
“I think that victory right there made the whole company feel like they could move on, that we could be a strong team,” Earnhardt Jr. told Letarte in that 2015 interview.
When he finally arrived in Victory Lane, an exhausted Earnhardt Jr. tried to put his feelings into words.
“He was here with me tonight,” he said of his father. “I have to dedicate this win to him. There’s nobody else I could dedicate it to.”
He thanked Pops with a neck hug, the same kind of gesture his father used to make all the time, and TV analyst Bill Weber asked him if he had shed any tears during the cool-down lap.
“I’ll be crying sooner or later,” a clearly exhausted Earnhardt Jr. said, slumping against the side of the car that had carried him to Victory Lane for perhaps the most important and poignant victory of his career.
His valiant run from sixth to first to win at Daytona, five months after losing his father at the same place, brought to mind another victory on a restrictor-plate track: his father’s 76th and last triumph the previous year at Talladega. In that race, Dale Sr. came from well back in the field in a short time to build his legacy even higher than it was already.
July 7, 2001 went a long way toward doing the same for his son.