I stopped in a line of traffic, the nose of my car just short of the rail tracks that run in front of Richard Childress's shop complex in Welcome, N.C. The line of cars began to build behind me.I heard a loud train horn.
I didn't exactly jump, but I looked quickly left and right, up and down the tracks, just to be sure. Then I looked behind me, and yes, there was Earnhardt, behind the wheel of a black Chevrolet dually pick-up. He and a colleague in the cab were doubled over laughing.
Earnhardt and I finally parked simultaneously, and he waited for me on the sidewalk in front of the shop. "You must have jumped half a foot," he said, still chuckling.
"Did not."
He grinned like a cat. "I rigged that horn on the truck for times like that. Some people, we really get 'em."
Yes, Dale Earnhardt could be rough, but never cruel.
Somewhere along the way, sometime in the 1980s, he picked up a reputation as a cold-blooded killer, a black-hearted son of a bitch. He was conscious of the image and did nothing to discourage it.
"I like to help out young guys [racers], guys who have talent and desire but not the means," he told me once. He put a hand over my notepad. "Don't put that in there," he added. "I don't want people to know about all that."
Whether Earnhardt really expected me not to write that I'll never know. Earnhardt was a shrewd manipulator of media, a craft he learned quickly. Some recall that, in his early days with Rod Osterlund, he could be seen sprinting from his car after a practice to meet a reporter -- any reporter -- for an interview.
In his later days, he could put you completely at unease. I remember trying to call him at his Busch [now Nationwide] shop ? the enterprise that grew into Dale Earnhardt Inc. This was early in my newspaper career. I identified myself, asked the person who answered the phone if Earnhardt was there.
"I think he's around here somewhere," the man said. "Hang on a minute."
I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, the man's voice piped up again. "This is him. I'm getting ready to go hunting with Dale Jr. You get three questions."
Another time, I went to an early year test at the Richmond raceway. I waited all morning for Earnhardt to give me a minute or two. At lunch, he waved me over, and he and I got into a car parked near the garages.
Earnhardt was in the front seat and I in the rear. I started asking questions. Earnhardt didn't answer. I noticed he was slipping lower and lower in the front seat. After a couple more questions, another fellow who had joined us said, "Looks like he's gone to sleep. You might have to come back later."
Really, can you recall any time when Earnhardt came to blows in the garage? Heck, even Jeff Gordon has been in more visible pit-road firefights than Earnhardt ever was.
I was quietly furious, but this was Earnhardt. What could I do?
It wasn't just me. I saw Earnhardt prank other reporters, other drivers, NASCAR officers -- whoever offered him a quick set-up for a joke.
As we got to know each other better, Earnhardt would confide in me, occasionally with some physical handling. He liked to crook his arm hard around your neck to pull you aside as he told something he didn't want everyone to hear.
At Daytona in 1997, Earnhardt, in the factory Chevrolet, lost to Dale Jarrett, in the powerful Robert Yates Ford. There had been some considerable controversy over Ford's new top-end engine package that supposedly gave the Fords an advantage on the big tracks.
In those days, you still could catch the drivers on pit road or at the gas pumps as soon as the race was over. The mob of media swarmed around Earnhardt. He saw me as soon as he got out of his car, grabbed me by the shirt front, and yelled, almost in agony, "[NASCAR] gave 'em the candy store. Don't you see? They gave 'em the candy store."
Earnhardt then went on to do the usual polite TV and AP interviews, leaving me with what amounted to an exclusive.
I'm sure there are many who might dispute my "rough but not cruel" assertion, especially other drivers. Terry Labonte and Ricky Rudd (as tough a little rooster as ever turned a wheel) were among those who didn't think much of the man or his tactics.
But cruel? I recall when Earnhardt bumped good pal Rusty Wallace off the final fourth turn at Talladega, sending Rusty down the trioval in a series of violent flips. That was, what, 1993, 1994? Wallace wasn't badly hurt, but no one knew that as Earnhardt drove the the pumps for the mandatory post-race fill-up.
And few know of the deep loss he endured when Neil Bonnett, his best friend, died at Daytona in 1994. As time passed, he'd refer to the moment vaguely and quickly, as though it were something he wanted to pretend hadn't happened.
Earnhardt's rough side was an exact product of his time and place -- the corner of Coach and Sedan in Kannapolis, N.C. -- and his associations with the people he called his own -- father Ralph, Uncle Dub, cousin Tony. His humor was crude, and yachts and Lears aside, his tastes were simple and homely.
But cruel? Even at the peak of Earnhardt's "Intimidator" reign, such as at the tumultuous The Winston finish in 1987, he was never part of the brawling riots that sometimes erupted in wake of his on-track acts and reacts.
Then there was the fall Richmond race in 1987, on that impossible, old, flat half-mile. Earnhardt and arch-rival Darrell Waltrip had wrecked each other at the finish of the spring race, resulting in stern warnings and threats of sanction from NASCAR.
So who's in front in September? Earnhardt and Waltrip, of course. For the final 100 laps, the two men raced side-by-side, touching fenders almost incidentally, and leaving the crowd breathless. A caution at the finish saved the victory for Earnhardt and thwarted Waltrip's plan to, as he put it, "let the rough side drag" on the final lap.
Really, can you recall any time when Earnhardt came to blows in the garage? Heck, even Jeff Gordon has been in more visible pit-road firefights than Earnhardt ever was.
He wasn't one who demanded swift, one-punch justice, as Harry Gant would. The only time I recall a report of Earnhardt using his fists was in taking on a poacher in the woods behind his home.
And crude? Sure. There are stories I won't repeat about some of the things he found hilarious.
For whatever reasons, he called on myself and Benny Phillips to write his authorized biography ("Dale Earnhardt: Determined") in 1998. Then he made me jump through hoops to get the access I needed to do the book.
After laying down an ultimatum to wife Teresa at California Speedway that spring, I got a call from Earnhardt's PR batman, J.R. Rhodes, one night at home. "Earnhardt says he's shooting a commercial for Bass Pro Shops all day tomorrow," J.R. said, relaying the orders. "If you can be here at 7 in the morning, you'll have all the time you need."
I got up at 2 a.m., drove from Richmond to Charlotte, and met J.R. at 7 at Garage Mahal. Earnhardt was already out in the woods behind his house, up in a tree stand, doing multiple takes for the commercial. Later, he was out in Lake Norman in a rowboat, pulling the same poor bass out of the water over and over again to satisfy the director.
(At the end of the shoot, Earnhardt insisted on packing the fading fish in a cooler, intending to keep it alive until he could get it back to his farm and his pond. The fish didn't make it.)
In between, I got in a few false starts on the book. More instructive was simply to watch Earnhardt in action. We drove around the farm in his truck, met with then-business manager Don Hawk -- Earnhardt made quick, certain decisions about crises and opportunities -- and we stopped at his pond, where he fetched a spin rod and made a few casts, talking away to me.
(Earnhardt humor: We walked to the dock, and he handed me a metal scoop full of meal. "Throw it in the water," he said, and I did. Suddenly, there came an eruption in the water, as maybe three dozen catfish attacked the meal. Earnhardt laughed like this was the funniest thing he'd ever seen.)
As the sun went down, he drove me across the highway to a vacant house he was trying to rent; he later rented it to Junior. He motioned me to sit down with him on the steps at the front porch, apparently realizing that he was to make a lasting statement, something for the ages.
He spoke for 15 or 20 minutes, and that was it. Job done. We shook hands, and I started the drive home. What he'd said seemed pretty colorless at the time, and I was disappointed. But it began to grow on me as I played the tape back at home, and I decided to use it as post-script for the book, a Gettysburg Address. (I won't quote it here; get the book and read it yourself), but the essence of the speech was a clear and precise story of a rough-edged young man growing up to be a tycoon and a champion.
The message? Confidence in one's self. Confidence comes from success, from achievement. In spite of myself, I've passed on this simple truth to my boys whenever they hit a snag.
That's not rough, or cruel, or crude in any way. The best word to use, at least in that case, is wisdom, and I'll confess I learned a thing or two from Dale Earnhardt.
Ben Blake, a long-time racing reporter and commentator who started covering NASCAR and motorsports in 1982, is the author or co-author of five NASCAR-related books, including Dale Earnhardt: Determined, the authorized biography of Dale Earnhardt that he co-authored with Benny Phillips.
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