The Auto Racing Journal: Dale Earnhardt

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

EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 13-plus years with my dog Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• OOH! OOH! The stereophonic huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!

Top 10 Dale Earnhardt Moments in NASCAR | NASCAR Legends

One of my favorite memories of Dale Earnhardt Sr. came in the 1990s in Atlanta.

We were in the press box, and a woman I'd never seen before asked Dale a question. He gave an honest answer, but he realized that she was taken aback a bit by the strength of his reply.

So he did something I'd never seen him do before; he smiled, softening the "blow" of his reply. She relaxed a bit, and the press conference went on.

It was subtle, but I was happy to see it.

Strangely, I never saw her again.