Dale Earnhardt Once Tricked A Friend Into Fixing His Pond By Promising To Stock It With Fish: “They Were Collect On Delivery”

Something only Dale Earnhardt could get away with.

During the pilot episode of Herm & Schrader a while back, former NASCAR driver Ken Schrader talked to fellow former driver Kenny Wallace about his friend Dale Earnhardt, the legendary Intimidator, and some of his favorite stories about their time together.

And while Dale Sr. obviously made tons of money over the years, more than what I’m sure he ever thought possible, he was always just a simple country boy at heart. He enjoyed working on his land, being outside hunting and fishing and the simple pleasures in life, but he was a little bit sneaky too.

Schrader recalled helping his friend dig out a pond when they were filling up a huge reservoir off 73 near Concord, North Carolina, and Dale telling him he’d fill it up with good fish and stock it well if Schrader got it in tip top shape.

Well, he got it done, and when he told Sr. he needed the fish, about a week later, a company rolled up with all the fish he had promised… but it was a “collect on delivery” order and Schrader had to pay up:

“He he nailed me on that pond deal. Yes, he nailed on that. They were building that big reservoir off 73. ‘Get over there and get those guys with them bulldozers and dam this up, and do this, and do that.

The spring, we’ll fill this up and then you run another pipe.’ He told me everything to do, he said, ‘You get it done, you let me know’ and of course he drove by a lot anyway. He said, ‘I’ll get you the fish for it.’ Okay, well, we will get it done, we open up the water to it, and it’s filling up pretty quick.

I mean, it probably filled up in three days, maybe. It was pretty big. It’s about an acre. And I said, ‘Okay, I need fish… He said, I’m gonna put 100 catfish and 200 bluegill’ or something like that in there. I said ‘Okay.’ Well, it wasn’t a week later, they showed up, they were COD, but they showed up. He didn’t quite take care of the fish like he said, he just ordered them.”

He paid them for it, but Schrader didn’t mention if he ever got refunded for that one… I imagine it wasn’t cheap, though.

Another time, Schrader recalled working with Dale at the farm, and they decided to go get lunch. They at local chain What-A-Burger (not the same as the one in Texas, and so much better… sorry, Texans. It’s true.), but it was really busy and Dale didn’t want to wait.

So he took Schrader to a “seafood lunch” which meant going to get sardines at the local convenience store:

“One time I was at the farm, and he said ‘You wanna go eat lunch? I said ‘Yeah.’ and we went to What-A-Burger, and it was too busy and this and that, and he finally said ‘You like seafood?’

And I said ‘Yeah.’ So we went to that little, come out of his shop, turn right, it was a little convenience store up on the left. Old timey. And he bought crackers and sardines. That was the seafood. So I didn’t partake in lunch, but that was his seafood lunch.”

Wallace added that Dale was always “a country as could be,” a man’s man who loved cowboy boots and Lynyrd Skynyrd, and never saw him “be wealthy”:

“He was every man’s man. Everybody wanted to be him, but boy, he was country as country could be. Literally wear those cowboy boots and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I don’t think I ever watched Dale Sr. be wealthy. I mean, he was always just country as could be.”

He was true to himself until the tragic day he died, and I think that’s a huge part of why so many fans connected with him and he became the icon that he did, in addition to the fact that he was an extremely talented driver and unmatched in grit and the sheer will to win.

You can watch the video below, it’s hilarious:

The post Dale Earnhardt Once Tricked A Friend Into Fixing His Pond By Promising To Stock It With Fish: “They Were Collect On Delivery” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.