Dale Earnhardt Jr. asked that tracks didn’t give him any retirement gifts during this his final NASCAR season, preferring instead they do something to help others.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. gifted championship-winning race car his father once drove
Talladega Superspeedway’s retirement gift to Dale Earnhardt Jr. was an actual car his father drove when he won his first NASCAR championship in 1980.
Photo by Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images
But while Talladega Superspeedway may have ignored that request Friday, what they gave Earnhardt was something he greatly appreciated and certainly wasn’t going to turn down.
Earnhardt was the recipient of a Chevrolet Monte Carlo that his father drove during the 1980 NASCAR season, the year Dale Earnhardt Sr. would win the first of a record-tying seventh Cup Series championships. Talladega officials presented the younger Earnhardt with the car two days before he’s to make his final start at the Alabama oval where he’s won six times and his father a track-best 10 races.
said he had never driven an old car that had such a connection to his father. Dale Earnhardt Sr. died in an accident on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. Afterward, Earnhardt Jr. was smiling as he climbed out of the blue and yellow Chevrolet.
“It was pretty neat just to trying to imagine what it would be like running that thing around it 180, 190 mph,” Earnhardt said. “I’ve never driven anything old like this with some real history. I love to be able to just sit in the car and see the perspective of what the view was like. It is pretty different than our cars today.”
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