NASCAR Exec, Ty Norris, Reveals Insane Retaliation By Teresa Earnhardt After Explosive Fight With Dale Jr: “That Was The End”

It’s a wonder why DEI didn’t last long after Dale Earnhardt’s death and Teresa was in charge…

Recently, Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared an interview from a few years back with Ty Norris on his Dale Jr. Download podcast, and he had plenty of great stories about his friend and former boss, the late, great Dale Earnhardt.

Ty was hired in 1996 by Earnhardt to serve as executive vice president of motorsports for Dale Earnhardt Inc., and he played an integral role in helping the team become a real player at NASCAR’s top level of competition in 1998. Over eight years, DEI won 65 NASCAR races and 4 championships (from 1996 to 2004). He’s gone onto do a ton in the sports world, and is currently a partner with Justin Marks at the new and already successful Trackhouse Racing.

But he also told the infamous story about a meeting at his office in 2004, the day of their DEI Christmas party, where Jr. and driver Michael Waltrip, who was a DEI driver at the time, had it out with Teresa over a payment dispute. Of course, Teresa was left to run DEI after her husband’s tragic and sudden passing, and was in no way really qualified to make all of those decisions. It was a lot to take over, but as Jr. pointed out during this podcast, she was never willing to relinquish any control… I have sympathy for the fact that she really didn’t know what she was doing, but at some point, she needed to let other people step in who knew what they were doing.

Teresa ultimately pushed her stepson out of the company, and since then, has become extremely disliked by racing fans for so many reasons… she infamously kept Dale Jr. from being part of Dale Earnhardt Inc. after Dale Sr’s tragic death at Daytona in 2001, and that’s just scratching the surface on some of the issues she’s had with others in the family, mostly between her and her step children.

But following his father’s death, Jr. wanted to step up and eventually take over the race team, though ultimately that did not happen and he eventually started his own company, Jr. Motorsports, after he and Teresa failed to come to an agreement with his contract. But Norris, who was Executive Vice President there at the time, recalled the fight that ended it all for him when he ultimately quit, and it’s a wild story.

The day of DEI’s 2003 Christmas party, Jr. and Waltrip walked into his office and told him DEI had breached their contract because they hadn’t been paid since September. Well, Norris handled all the money except for paying the drivers, and it was Teresa’s job to sign those checks:

“Probably the biggest event we had was when you and Michael came my office one time, and said… it was December, the day of the Christmas party of ’03. You guys came to my office, and you’re like, ‘We were talking last night and we haven’t been paid since September and you guys have breached my contract.’

And I’m like, ‘Whoa, time out. and they’re like, ‘How come you haven’t paid me?’ And I’m like ‘Well, I signed all these operational checks except for one account, and that account pays you guys. That’s Teresa.’ And you’re like ‘Well, I wanna talk to her right now.’ And you were mad as hell. And I’m like, ‘I don’t know you.’ You’re like, ‘I’m go and find out what I’m really worth.’ And you just signed your deal, you had just signed an extension through ’07 or something. I’m like ‘Just calm down, we’ll get this worked out. Let’s call Teresa and get her down here.’

This is probably like 11 in the morning. So we call Teresa’s office, call the house, and an hour goes by. And you’re getting madder, and we’re like, ‘Judy, when’s she coming down?’ ‘It will be 30 more minutes.’ and we wait another hour. You were getting mad, so you left and Michael and Richie Gilmore were there, and they came back.”

Norris warned Jr. not to attack his stepmom when she walked in, because this wasn’t a personal issue, it was strictly business… well, that’s obviously much easier said than done, especially considering that Jr. and Teresa had always had a rocky relationship, to say the least.

But Jr. couldn’t help himself, and he let it rip when she finally walked into the office three hours later…

“Finally I said, ‘Listen, do not attack her. Do not make this personal when she shows up. This is a contractual issue. This is business, right?’ So I went on my computer, and I typed up bullet points of things I wanted you to say, and say it this way. Be ready, because when she comes in here, just like have a professional conversation. You’re like, ‘Alright, cool.’

Finally she shows up, we waited three hours. She walks in and Jr. is so mad, he starts yelling at her. ‘Been waiting down here for three damn hours.’ And he just starts jumping her case. And he’s like, ‘Y’all haven’t paid me, you breached my contract.’ And that’s how the conversation started. I was like, ‘Oh s***.’

I’m trying to mediate, but it was over. It was bitter. And so this whole meeting left, and you said what you wanted to say, and you didn’t wanna stick around. You stayed long enough and you left. And I sat there, and Michael didn’t say a word, but he and Richie left. “

Jr. left, and obviously Teresa was caught off-guard by Jr.’s reaction, and she blamed Norris, who was stuck in the middle and just trying to help fix the issue. She looked at him and told him he’d “ambushed” her, and she was so mad she didn’t talk to him for a month… but not before suggesting they “make another Dale Jr.,” which was obviously not possible. They needed him because he was the only person who could step in for his father, but she never say it that way, and ultimately, DEI closed its doors for good a few years after this.

But the part of the story I had never heard before was what came next, when after giving Norris the silent treatment for a month (extremely unprofessional, by the way, but I digress…), she brought him two letters.

She told him he could sign either one, and one was a termination letter, and one offered him a 67% reduction in salary, which would’ve had him making less than he did when he started there. Obviously, he was extremely upset and offended, and he told her his last day would be the day they loaded everyone up for the Daytona 500 that following February:

“And Teresa looked at me and said, ‘You ambushed me.’ And I said ‘Teresa, I did not. I’m trying to resolve an issue. I don’t have access to pay these guys.’ She goes, ‘You care more about Dale Jr. than you care about me. And I said, ‘Caring about Dale Jr. is caring about you. She made a comment, she goes, ‘Well if Dale Jr. doesn’t wanna stick around here, we’ll make another Dale Jr.’

And I was like, ‘Do you speak French? Who’s we? There’s not another Dale Jr. Jeff Gordon can’t do it. There’s no one who can do it. We we have to resolve this issue.’ And she was so mad at me, that she didn’t talk to me for another month until she said, ‘You can sign this paper or this paper. You can quit, or the other one is, you can take a reduction.’ Like a 67% reduction in salary. She’s was knocking me down to less than I made when I first started there. And she said, ‘You can sign one of these two.’

And I’m like, ‘This is over this meeting we had with the drivers?’ She was like, ‘I’ve been hearing so much stuff lately, I just don’t want to even talk to you anymore.’ And I lost my my cool, and it made it worse. So anyway, that was the end. I said, ‘I’ll be here until we load them up to go to the Daytona 500, and the day we load them to go to the Daytona 500 will be my last day.'”

Jr. couldn’t believe that’s how it ended, I guess he never knew the details, and I think that really paints the picture of why everything went down the way it did and how unfit she was to handle running that company… her people skills were lacking, to say the very least, and the people she needed the most to help push DEI along and take it to the next level, she got rid of. The disrespect towards him in that moment was just next level…

Regardless of all of that, it’s just a shocking story, and I can’t imagine how sad it would’ve made Dale to know his right hand man, who contributed so much to their organization and did so much to make it successful, was treated this way by his wife.

Jr. and his former co-host Mike Davis have the exact reactions I did when I heard this for the first time… my jaw hit the floor:

@americanautosport Ty Norris recalls a heated contract dispute meeting with he, Dale Jr, Michael Waltrip, and Teresa Earnhardt that eventually led to him getting fired. #dalejr #dalejrdownload #daleearnhardt #daleearnhardtjr #tynorris #dei #teresaearnhardt #nascarstories #nascarmemories #vintagenascar #90snascar #oldnascar #nascarpodcast #nascarhistory #dirtymomedia ♬ original sound – American Autosport

You can watch the full episode with Norris below.

The post NASCAR Exec, Ty Norris, Reveals Insane Retaliation By Teresa Earnhardt After Explosive Fight With Dale Jr: “That Was The End” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.