Kerry Earnhardt Didn’t Know That Dale Earnhardt Was His Father Until He Was In High School

Imagine growing up with Dale Earnhardt as your father…or even more crazy, growing up with Dale Earnhardt as your father and not knowing it.

There’s been a renewed interest in the NASCAR legend since the release of Earnhardt on Amazon Prime Video a few weeks ago. The documentary, which was produced by Ron Howard along with assistance from Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his company, Dirty Mo Media, provides an in-depth look not only at Dale Earnhardt the race car driver but also the friend and father.

A big part of the documentary focuses on the relationship that the Intimidator had with his children Dale Jr., Kelley Earnhardt, and Kerry Earnhardt. It was clear that Earnhardt had a hard time expressing his love for his kids, and it seems at times they felt that they could never do enough to win their father’s approval.

In fact, Earnhardt wasn’t involved in his oldest son’s life until he was in high school.

Now 55-years old, Kerry Earnhardt is the son of Earnhardt and his first wife, Latane Brown. Dale and Latane got married when he was just an 18 year old dirt track racer. But because they were so young, the marriage didn’t last long: The two were divorced just a few years later, when Kerry was 3 years old.

As Kerry recalled during an appearance on his brother’s podcast, the Dale Jr. Download, Kerry didn’t remember much from the time his parents together – which makes sense because he was so young. And after they got divorced, his mother married a man named Jack Key, who adopted Kerry when he was just six years old.

All the while, Kerry had no idea who his real father was, and his mother and stepdad didn’t tell him because they were worried he would be disappointed to know that his dad couldn’t be around much.

It wasn’t until Kerry was in the 9th grade, when he got older and more curious about his real father, that his mother finally gave in and told him that he was the son of Dale Earnhardt.

At the time, Dale would have already won a few Cup Series races and was well on his way to becoming one of the biggest NASCAR drivers of the time. But even after finding out that Dale was his father, Kerry didn’t immediately get to reconnect with him.

The first member of the Earnhardt family Kerry met was his grandmother Martha, the matriarch of the Earnhardt family and wife of Ralph Earnhardt. Martha came to watch one of his baseball games in Concord, North Carolina, and brought some of his cousins along so he could meet more of his family. And she continued going to his games, allowing Kerry and his “Mamaw” to form a strong relationship.

Eventually, with the help of some of his Earnhardt family members, there was a call set up for Kerry to talk to his dad on the phone. But even after talking to his dad, Kerry had still never met him until the day he got his driver’s license.

Kerry recalls getting in his truck and going to visit Martha – who told him that his father was working in his garage behind the house.

He says he spent “about two hours” talking to his grandmother before finally working up the courage to go out and meet his dad in person for the first time – or at least the first time that he could remember:

“I opened that door, and it got quiet. And I remember Tony Sr. was sittin’ there, and dad was under the hood. And he just raised up when I opened the door, and dad’s like ‘Hey, son.’

And I said, ‘Hey, dad, how are you doing?’ So we sat there and talked a little bit and he says ‘Come on, let’s go ridin’.

So we rode around town for a little bit just talkin’ about things, and he mentioned about me comin’ to the house visiting and getting to meet you and Kelley.”

Kerry says that it felt natural talking to his father, and that Dale expressed his regret for the time that he had missed out on. And he said that Dale also mentioned setting up a time for Kerry to come over and meet his siblings, Dale Jr. and Kelley.

At the time, Kerry didn’t know anything about his brother and sister: He didn’t even know their names until he went over to Dale’s house to meet them, because their father was apparently worried about how his siblings would react to meeting their brother and wanted to take things slow:

“He didn’t want to introduce us at that time to stir things up. Like I said, he wanted to slowly grow into it, and I don’t know what that meant.

I don’t think he was worried about that person who answered the door gettin’ along with it.

I think he was more worried about Kelley and how y’all were going to deal with things and accept things.”

(“That person who answered the door” was Dale’s wife, Teresa Earnhardt, who slammed the door in Kerry’s face before Dale finally came and let him in).

Well despite any reservations that they may have had, the siblings immediately bonded – thanks in part to the hope that Kerry could help turn things around at their home, which Dale Jr. admits wasn’t “all that fun” (no doubt in part to the icy relationship that he and Kelley had with their stepmother).

“The vibe in that house wasn’t all that fun. And so the idea of what could this mean, introducing this new person into the whole dynamic, could make things better.

You saw how Kelley didn’t wanna do nothing but talk to you that whole day, ‘cuz she was just thinkin’, man this has gotta make things better.”

Well the rest is history, with Kerry going on to become a race car driver and businessman just like his dad – and also a spitting image of his late father.

The three siblings remain close, and their relationship with their father is explored even more in depth in the new Earnhardt documentary.

But it’s a relationship that Kerry never even knew he had for the first 13 years of his life.

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