Friday, February 17, 2017

A handshake with Earnhardt

EARNHARDT AND BOBBY LABONTE
This is another memory in honor of Dale Earnhardt Sr., who died on Feb. 18, 2001.

 It was the late 1990s, and we were at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Earnhardt was being swamped by race fans, and he was looking around for help.

 He saw me and smiled. He knew how to get away.

 As I walked up, Earnhardt stuck out his hand and we shook hands. It must have lasted a half-minute, and we had a short conversation. I told him that he owed me one for the favor; he smiled and agreed.

 The fans seemed to enjoy the incident because Earnhardt was talking to someone he knew (at least a little bit, in my case).

 Then he turned and walked away, leaving me and his fans in the lurch. I saw him a few times after that, but we never spoke one-on-one again.

 If you're wondering, that was only the second time we ever shook hands. The first time was on the media tour in 1992.

Related: Angel in Black

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)