Dale Earnhardt still inspires

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- On the fifth anniversary of the passing of seven-time NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt, his memory still inspires respect -- and quite a few grins.

Would you have dared to flip off the man? How about drink him under the table? Or even race him nose-to-tail or side-to-side -- or trade paint to take a spot?

All these recollections are among the best memories of a man who at once was the most revered, vilified and possibly misunderstood of his time.

It was never Big E's fault

Kyle Petty -- A long many years ago, we were in Riverside, Calif. -- it had to be back in 1979 or so, when I was 18 or 19 years old, and Dale was just starting out and running for rookie of the year.

We went go-kart racing with T. Wayne Robertson and Wes Beroth and a bunch of the other guys from R.J. Reynolds. And we wrecked so freakin' hard -- I had a pair of cowboy boots on, like 'The King' [father, Richard Petty] wears -- and I split one from the bottom right to the top.

Whose fault was it? You know, all of us ended up in a pile, and in typical Earnhardt fashion -- I don't think anybody knew who hit who, you know what I mean? But we all pointed at him.

All I know is, they threw us out of there, we went out and ate a steak, then went back to the hotel. And that's about as good a memory as there is. But it's not my favorite. (see below)

The fingers went both ways

Wally Dallenbach Jr. -- One of the first times I came to the [Daytona] speedway, and one of the first times I tested a Cup car, you used to have to line up on pit road and wait for the fireman to let you go.

I didn't really know Earnhardt -- I had met him when I was running IROC, but I had never really spent any time with him -- so I'm sitting there, and Earnhardt pulls up next to me. I look over, and he's giving me this dirty look, just sitting there staring at me with those goggles on.

So I flipped him off. And he started cracking up. From that point on, we were always good friends. He came up to me afterwards and wrestled my neck and said, 'What was that for?'

I said, 'I didn't know what else to do and that was the first thing that popped into my head.' Ever since then he treated me real good and was great to [wife] Robin and I -- but that was the icebreaker, giving him the finger.

That's a side of Dale a lot of people weren't lucky enough to see. I went hunting with Dale and spent some time on his ranch in North Carolina. He was just a good guy, and I was lucky enough to see that side of him and fortunate enough to call him a friend, because away from the racetrack he was really a different person -- very cool.

Kurt Busch -- My 'Welcome to NASCAR Moment' was probably "the finger" out the window from Dale at Daytona. It was my first Daytona 500 and I got the finger out the window.

I thought I was minding my own business in the middle lane, but when it's Senior you gotta move over and let him come through. He was on his way to the front.

"The Intimidator" at work?

Randy LaJoie -- It was in a Busch race at Dover, and I was driving my own racecar and Dale was running the Lowe's Foods car. I had gone down a lap early and run behind him the whole race.

You know, it was the old V6 days and I said, 'I'm gonna pass Earnhardt.' I was better than him and I was pushing him, but I said 'Aaah, he's on the lead lap and I'm not so I won't.'

They didn't have the 'Lucky Dog' then, so finally I said 'I'm gonna pass this son of a b----' -- so how is he doing this. I figured he had to be holding it on the mat. He had to be wide-open.

So I said, 'If he can do it, I can do it,' so I tightened up the belts a little more and I ran down in there and I told myself not to lift, and I didn't and I skated up the track about a foot, kinda got into his door and he got back into me and I drove off.

I think I ended up finishing seventh. So after the race, they only had one parts truck, and it was down in the Cup garage. So I went down there to pay my parts bill for the weekend and Earnhardt seen me walking and here he come.

I said 'Oh, he's gonna kick my a--.' But he put his arm around me and said, 'Now, that's the way you pass somebody.' I thought that was cool.

Robby Gordon -- I was driving for Felix Sabates, we qualified sixth for the 1996 UAW 500 in a Racing for Kids, Felix Sabates, Dale Earnhardt venture. Somebody oiled down the track in practice and three of us crashed.

Even though we had qualified sixth, we were only doing it to get experience for next year, so I was ready to sit out and get ready for 1997. But Joe Nemechek hadn't made the race, and they were going to let me drive his car.

I was unimpressed with the way I sat in it, I didn't feel safe doing it and I told Felix I wasn't going to drive. I just wanted to wait for Phoenix, which was our next scheduled race.

I got a phone call from Dale himself at my house, and he said 'Felix tells me you're not going to drive the car.' And I told him I wasn't comfortable in it and I didn't want to drive it.

He told me, 'You will show up at the racetrack and you will drive that car, or you will never drive another stock car again.' So I drove it.

Scott Wimmer -- I ran the Atlanta [Cup] race in 2000, and in the race, by pit stops and everything we ended up leading the race, and I had Dale Earnhardt in my mirror.

That was probably my 'Welcome to NASCAR Moment,' because I remember being so nervous, because I didn't want to spin out in front of the field and especially with Dale Earnhardt behind me -- so that was probably the moment I remember the most.

Scott Pruett -- In 2000 we did the whole Cup schedule together, and at the Brickyard, we ran almost the whole race, it seemed, side by side. He'd be ahead of me, and I'd be ahead of him -- and it came down to the end and I beat him.

And after the race he came up to me and gives me one of those shoves of his that Dale always did, and he said 'You did a great job.'

So for me, personally, coming from a guy like Dale, it meant a lot because we raced hard the whole race and it was a great race for me -- one of the my best finishes non road course in my NASCAR history, so it was phenomenal.

It didn't matter what I had accomplished in sports cars or Indy cars -- I think all drivers looked up to Earnhardt for his accomplishments, for his tenacity, for his willingness to help other drivers -- either directly or indirectly, and that list is among the top of the top.

Let alone for the fans, who knew he was going to be going for the win, week in and week out and doing whatever it took to get to the front. Sometimes it may have been a little on the aggressive side, but that was Dale, and everybody knew that was Dale.

I think across the board he had such an impact on the sport, on all levels, whether it's with his peers, the drivers, or with his fans.

Michael Waltrip -- It was at Dover, in about 1987, and Dale was leading the race and he lapped me for about the 10th or 15th time. And when he went by me, he was smoking his tires and driving with one hand.

I mean, he had his hand on the rollbar on the right side and he was driving with one hand -- and he lapped me. So here I was driving with both hands, and I said, 'That's not fair, I'm going to go catch him.' But I wasn't going to catch him.

Dale Jarrett -- There are almost too many Dale Earnhardt stories, but he taught me a lesson in about the last 20 laps of my first Cup race, at Martinsville. We weren't racing for position but I was actually racing him, and I'd pass him and then drive into the corner too hard and he'd get back under me.

We did that about three times and then I finally figured out what he was doing, and we laughed about it later on. But there were a lot of good stories with him, and a lot of things I learned away from the racetrack, as well as on it.

What goes around comes around

Ricky Rudd -- In the earlier days we used to wear bubble goggles. We'd always set our helmet on our fire extinguisher bottle [in the cockpit] and at the start of the race we'd always have a new box of bubble goggles sitting there ready to put on.

I can't remember where we were, but I put my helmet on and I went to put my goggles on. This was like a minute before you'd crank your motor. I go to put my goggles on, I pull 'em out of the box -- a brand-new pair -- and there's two eyeballs drawn on the lenses so I couldn't see out of my goggles.

So there was a panic to go get me another pair of goggles at the last minute so I didn't miss leaving the line. That was probably one of the smartest things I had played on me.

And yeah, it was Earnhardt who did it

Rusty Wallace -- It was at Darlington for a 500-mile race, and a typically hot day. I had qualified fifth and I think Earnhardt qualified seventh. So I jumped in my car for the race and it smelt so bad it burnt my eyes.

I jumped out of the car and I looked around, and I got back in and it felt like I was sitting on water, or something. He had dumped four cans of sardines under my seat cushion -- filled the seat -- and it stunk so bad you couldn't see straight.

So the next week we went to Bristol. And [before the race] Dale was always a vocal guy and he had a lot of people around him, so he was doing his Dale Earnhardt deal and having a good time and had a crowd of people around him.

Back then, we didn't have a cord attached to our steering wheels -- drivers would just take them off and set them on the roof of the car. So I saw him over there holding court, and I reached over and took his steering wheel and put it inside my car, on the floor.

So he gets done doing that and they're getting real close to 'Gentlemen, start your engines' and I see him get in the car, and I'm looking in the rearview mirror thinking, 'This is really gonna be cool.'

He straps all up and they fire the engines up and I see him looking around. Well, the first car starts rolling off and I see this panic with his hands -- he's just going crazy.

His pit guys were jumping over the wall and they're all going crazy, and just about the time it was 100 percent panic -- I pulled the steering wheel out and I waved it at him. They come and grabbed it, and he never screwed with me again.

I looked in the mirror and he was shaking his fist and doing this [making faces]. I said, 'I didn't forget last week and those sardines, dude.'

Hey, you

History seems to show that Earnhardt virtually never hailed anyone by their given first name.

Greg Biffle -- Ron Hornaday had won the [Craftsman Truck Series] championship, and they were all at the hotel partying and having a great time, and to hear him say my last name, 'Hey Biffle, come in here and party with us.'

He was one heck of a person and I have lots of memories, but the most memorable is listening to him say, 'Biffle, come in here and drink some beers with us.' That always sticks in my head and I'll remember that for a long time.

Randy LaJoie -- We were starting side by side in the 300 here, and it was a windy day. He come over and put his arm around me, and he said, 'LaJoie, look at that [banner] plane up there -- it ain't moving.'

I said, 'Damn, Earnhardt, it's got to be moving or it would fall straight down.' So he said, 'What happens if he runs out of gas?' Anyways, someone had taken a picture of it, him with his arm around me, and looking up in the sky -- and you could see that airplane in his sunglasses.

So my mom had some made up for the fan club, so I called him up and asked him if he could sign some pictures for me, and he said, 'Yeah, bring 'em over.' So I went by the old Busch shop, the one with all the deer heads and stuff in it.

We sat down and drank way too many beers and had a good time. We signed all those cards and he kept one. He said, 'I ain't gonna sign all these things and not keep one,' so I said 'Here, you need to sign one for me.'

And he said, 'Not a problem.' He was a good guy.

Chip Ganassi -- My favorite Earnhardt story was on the Friday before the Daytona 500 when he left us. I was walking through the garage area and he looked at me and he said, 'Hey Ganassi?'

I looked back and said, 'Hey Earnhardt?' And we just kept walking.

Seeing both sides of the street

Carl Edwards -- I knew pretty early there was something about Dale Earnhardt, because my parents were completely split on the issue when I was a little kid. My dad didn't like him so much and my mom just loved the guy, so I knew there was something special about Dale Earnhardt.

Thanks, just glad to have been here

Bobby Labonte -- The one that comes to mind came at Rockingham. We had both started the year pretty good and he grabbed me by the sleeve, like he always did, and he said, 'Remember what you've got to do here -- you've got to let off, to go fast.'

I said, 'Yep, yep -- I gotcha.' And throughout the race, I would run good and he'd catch me with about 15 laps to go in the run. So finally at the end of the race I paced myself at the beginning of the last run and he caught me at the end of the race, and the checkered flag fell and he didn't pass me.

So after the race he grabbed me by the collar again and he jerked me around and he said 'You you-know-what -- you took my advice, didn't you?' I said, 'Yes, I did -- and I thank you for it.'

Dale Jarrett -- (When asked if he had ever sought to be the drivers' own 'go-to guy' when it came to pitching issues to NASCAR.) I don't know why, but I don't know that I ever tried to take that.

To be quite honest, I didn't want to be compared to Earnhardt because I think everybody would come up short in that respect. He was such a leader and was so well respected by everybody.

This isn't to slight Jeff [Gordon], but he doesn't carry the weight that Dale did even then, so I'm not sure exactly when you'll see that.

Obviously, [Dale Earnhardt] Junior carries a lot of weight with the fans and with the media and sponsors, but I don't know that he wants that obligation as far as being the kind of go-between between the drivers and teams in NASCAR like Dale did.

Casey Mears -- The one thing you always remember about him, watching TV, was how aggressive he was, always winning races, always doing well and the biggest thing that stood out in my mind was him being real aggressive.

I always liked to watch that, him moving guys out of the way and he had that attitude that he didn't care -- he was just getting to the front.

I never did get the opportunity to meet him, and I'm disappointed in that. When they were running the 24 hours [in 2001], I walked by and I thought, 'Man, I'm going to go introduce myself,' but I never did and that's one thing I'll always regret, because I sure would have loved to meet him.

Who was that guy?

Phil Holmer -- I know, one time and this was years ago, at Darlington. There wasn't much activity at the track and we were in the old building on what's now the backstretch. And this guy walked up and just looked at me from about a foot and a half away, and then he walks by.

I was looking at that guy and looking at that guy and all of sudden I said, 'Son of a gun!' It was Earnhardt, but he didn't have the mustache. I always wondered if at any time he'd had a fake mustache, where he could take it off and put it on.

Because I swear it was him, because you know how his eyes were, when he was playing a joke? And that was exactly it -- he had shaved it off and I didn't know it was him.

Thanks for the memories

Bobby Labonte -- The one that was sentimental to me came in 2000, when he took me around his farm, and the shop. He took me around the shop and showed me everything in the shop.

He took me back on the farm and showed me everything there. He took me to his house, around and all that stuff, and I thought that was pretty special. I don't know, we'd had a meeting over there about something, and he said, 'what are you doing?'

I said I had to get home, but he said, 'Come with me.' He grabbed me by the collar and we went and rode in his pickup truck and through the trees and all that stuff. It was about three hours later when I got home.

I told my wife, 'Sorry I'm late, but I got a real good story.' So that meant a lot, especially, obviously, with what happened within the next year.

Mark Martin -- Dale was a different man off the racetrack than he was on it. On the racetrack he was ruthless and sometimes downright mean. But we spent some quality time together away from the racetrack.

And off the racetrack there wasn't anybody that I know that wasn't more genuine of a friend than Dale Earnhardt. We spent some time together after an IROC race, when he drove me home from Charlotte, all the way to Greensboro [N.C.], about 1 o'clock in the morning.

He didn't need to do that, because he had to turn back around and ride all the way down to Lake Norman, but he just wanted to ride down the road and talk about racing.

Mike Helton -- For whatever reason, I've not been comfortable telling Earnhardt stories -- I like to keep them personal, and remember them just the way they happened, between me and him.

But the favorite times I had with Earnhardt came away from the racetrack, whether we were deep sea fishing or hunting or just hanging out talking about something besides racing.

Some of the most interesting times happened, obviously, at the racetrack, and I just don't know that I could come up with a favorite one. Dale had so many dimensions that the general public might not have been aware of.

But even if you were not able to experience them first hand, you felt them from a distance and I think that's what made him so impressive to so many people. His broad reach was obvious, even through a photograph or a TV clip, I think.

Kyle Petty -- My favorite Earnhardt memory, and it's amazing the way it worked out, but it was when we were down here running the [2001] 24-hour race. And he and I spent an hour, hour and a half just talking -- talking about Adam, talking about racing.

Like, he come to me and he said, 'Look, I've never been able to say anything to you because I have a son and it's a little bit too close to home for me.' And I understood that and I do understand that.

We just talked, about racing and about life and about a lot of stuff. That's probably it for me -- that, and before the [last] race he raced in, he hugged me on pit road before the race started, and I've got a picture of it.

That was pretty special, but I think just talking to him during the 24-hour race was the biggest thing.