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25 Years Ago Today, Dale Earnhardt Scored His Final NASCAR Cup Series Win After Going From 18th To First At Talladega In The Final Five Laps
The Intimidator. The Man In Black. There will never be another one like Dale Earnhardt in NASCAR. 7 Cup championships. 76 wins. But maybe none more impressive than his final win, which came 25 years ago today at Talladega Superspeedway on October 15, 2000. There are certain races from his career that Dale Earnhardt fans will just always remember. There was the 1998 Daytona 500, when he finally broke a 20-year winless streak in NASCAR’s biggest race. There was the […] The post 25 Years Ago Today, Dale Earnhardt Scored His Final NASCAR Cup Series Win After Going From 18th To First At Talladega In The Final Five Laps first appeared on Whiskey Riff.
The Intimidator. The Man In Black. There will never be another one like Dale Earnhardt in NASCAR.
7 Cup championships. 76 wins. But maybe none more impressive than his final win, which came 25 years ago today at Talladega Superspeedway on October 15, 2000.
There are certain races from his career that Dale Earnhardt fans will just always remember. There was the 1998 Daytona 500, when he finally broke a 20-year winless streak in NASCAR’s biggest race. There was the “Pass in the Grass” during the 1987 Winston All-Star Race. And there was the bump-and-run on Terry Labonte on the last lap at Bristol in 1999.
But of all of his wins, none may be more impressive than what would turn out to be his last one.
Earnhardt was Mr. Restrictor Plate: He won more races at Daytona and Talladega, the two tracks that used restrictor plates on the engines to slow the car’s speeds, than any other NASCAR driver in the 1990s.
His car owner Richard Childress even claimed that Dale could see the air moving around the cars. And watching Dale work his way through the pack that day, you’ve got to think Childress may have been right.
Earnhardt’s black #3 Chevrolet was beat up by the end of the race. He had had a bad pit stop before the last restart that left him stuck back in the field. And the laps were winding down.
But none of that would matter.
With 6 laps to go, Earnhardt got a push from his off-track friend Kenny Wallace and the two began to move up to the front of the field, slicing his way from 18th position to take the lead just before the final lap.
Wallace had his teammate Joe Nemechek behind him to give him a push if he decided to jump out of line to try to pass the 3 car for the lead – but he didn’t realize who it was in his rearview mirror, because he didn’t recognize Nemechek’s special-edition Charlie Daniels paint scheme.
Because he didn’t recognize his teammate in his rearview mirror, so Kenny stayed hooked onto Earnhardt’s bumper, content to settle for second instead of risk having to try to pass the Intimidator.
Earnhardt would go on to win what would turn out to be his final Winston Cup race (and a cool million dollars thanks to the No Bull 5 bonus), but would tragically lose his life just four months later at the 2001 Daytona 500.
But for one final time, 25 years ago today, Dale Earnhardt proved why he was one of the best to ever climb into a NASCAR racecar.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Worries His Father Will One Day Be Forgotten
Earlier this year, Dale Earnhardt Jr. had Cleetus McFarland as a guest on his Dale Jr. Download podcast, and if his name sounds familiar but you don’t exactly know who he is, he helped out a ton during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina.
Cleetus’ real name is Lawrence Garrett Mitchell, and he competes part-time in the ARCA Menards Series, driving the #30 Ford for Rette Jones Racing. He also has a very popular YouTube channel, where he puts out a lot of content about his love for helicopters and that type of thing, in addition to racing.
Along with NASCAR driver Greg Biffle, they flew supplies in their helicopters for days getting to hard-to-reach places in the mountains that were in dire need with no water, power or even homes and roads in many cases. I think we’ve all seen all of the photos and videos of the disaster zone it was there after Hurricane Helene, and honestly, even now in so many places. The damages and destruction will take years to recover from, but so many have lost things, and people, that obviously they can never get back or have replaced, which is the real tragedy.
He talked a lot on the episode about how he got so involved with that, and told some personal stories about things he witnessed, and it was really cool to hear about firsthand.
Cleetus also spoke quite a bit about how much both dale Dale Jr. and his father, Dale Earnhardt Sr., inspired him, and wanted to know about how Jr. felt about him making “Do it for Dale” his personal slogan of sorts. Of course, there are many variations you’ll hear like that around the South, like “Raise hell, praise Dale,” for example… one of my personal favorites.
It actually got pretty emotional at that point, with Dale telling Cleetus he loves it, because he has a big fear that his father will somehow be forgotten over time. He says those kinds of things give his legacy “staying power,” and he feels comfort in knowing how deeply he resonated, and continues to resonate, with people:
“I love it. My fear is that he’ll one day be forgotten with time. My worry would be that he would just disappear into the distance, right? As we get further and further removed from his career.
I was like, I just hope he’s never forgotten, because he left such an impact on the sport. So that kind of thing, is the staying power. That is the reminder to me like, that he’s… he resonated with people.”
Cleetus said what I think many of us watching were thinking in reassuring Dale that no one else in racing had the kind of impact his father did, and Dale responded:
“When I hear things like that, it’s like, yeah, he still matters.”
I know Dale Sr. was his dad so he has a different perspective on it than all of us, but it’s impossible to think that his legacy would ever fade in any way. Dale was a larger-than-life character, really, who is well past just being a legend in the NASCAR world, but rather become an American icon beloved by so many all over the world.
But at the same time, when that’s your dad, I can understand why Dale Jr. has those fears and I think it’s totally fair. But it’s something I’ve never really heard him talk about, and I found it really interesting, even if unfounded in my personal opinion:
You can watch the full episode here:
