The Auto Racing Journal: DALE ON THE POLE

In the late 1990s, a friend and I were listing the recent Daytona 500s without looking them up. We recalled who won the 500 pole in 1995 (Dale Jarrett), but who won it in 1996?

We couldn't recall, but we guessed that it was nobody big.

We were wrong. It was Dale Earnhardt, two years before he got his only Daytona 500 win.

In the mid-1990s, Dale Earnhardt was in the Winston Cup garage at Charlotte, and someone pushed in a little boy in a wheelchair. Dale said he was going to push the child to the Richard Childress Racing hauler, and I was going to go along.

Too good to pass up.

"Please don't, man," he said. "Please."

He didn't want his good deeds to get out; after all, he WAS the Intimidator. I paused a moment and backed off. He was hunched over as he pushed the kid to the hauler.

I never told anybody. Until now.

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More entries from TARJ

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing