Ralph Dale Earnhardt (April 29, 1951 – February 18, 2001) was an American professional stock car driver and racing team owner, who raced from 1975 to 2001 in the former NASCAR Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Series), most notably driving the No. 3 Chevrolet for Richard Childress Racing. His aggressive driving style earned him the nicknames "the Intimidator", "the Man in Black" and "Ironhead"; after his son Dale Earnhardt Jr. joined the Cup Series circuit in 1999, Earnhardt was generally known by the retronyms Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Dale Sr. He is regarded as one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history and named as one of the NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers class in 1998.
The character of Dale Earnhardt is a NASCAR race car driver, based on himself. He only appears once in the Season 2 episode "Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby's Saga". Earnhardt guest starred and voiced the character based on himself.
Appearance[]
Dale Earnhardt is a middle-aged Caucasian man with a skinny build, fair skin, short brown hair, with a long mustache. He wears a primarily black auto racing fire suit with blue and green stripes on the chest and waist with a blue collar, and a blue baseball cap.
History[]
Season 2[]
Hank Hill teases Bill Dauterive saying he'd be a regular Dale Earnhardt if he could make it around the track without stopping for a Ding Dong.
Hank notices Dale Earnhardt approaching him and his friends, as they are gathered around a blue race car with white stripes behind velvet rope. Bill stammers Earnhardt's nickname "the Intimidator" and departs nervously before Earnhardt arrives. Earnhardt admires the rope saying it's soft and pretty and he noticed it when he unloaded his car and then departs. The blue car was the honorary pace car to start the race was later driven by Officer Clint "Radar" Jemson, winner of the Amateur Classic 100.
Quote[]
- Dale Earnhardt: "Man, this rope sure is soft and pretty. I noticed it when we unloaded my car."
Trivia[]
- Earnhardt was killed in a last-lap crash at the 2001 Daytona 500. His death spurred numerous safety enhancements in NASCAR, and also marked the end of NASCAR's boom period, as the series would decline due to numerous rule changes demanded by the networks (such as the playoffs introduced in 2004 and stage racing introduced in 2017) and by Toyota (namely the low-horsepower, high downforce rule packages designed specifically to appease Toyota's complaints about engine failures during the 2014 season).
External links[]
- Dale Earnhardt at IMDb
- Dale Earnhardt at Wikipedia