When Dale Earnhardt Sr. tragically lost his life at the 2001 Daytona 500, the outpouring in his memory painted a portrait of NASCAR’s most dominant figure. Drivers, teams, and fans openly mourned the man known as “The Intimidator.” Junior idolized his father much like any other Dale Earnhardt fan did. He marveled at the man behind the wheel, the grit. “ The person he became, the person he was, was very easy to respect and appreciate his morals, and he was very easy to cheer for because he was successful all the time,” Junior said. “All these little things that were circumstantial, that made him this perfect, for lack of a better word, role model. It was just perfect, the way it worked out.”

Tributes flooded in not just from the racetrack but every layer of motorsport culture. Certain t

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