Rivals Run Ahead of Dale Earnhardt at Their Own Risk

TALLADEGA, Ala. —  “The thing about Dale is, he just can’t stand having anyone ahead of him, at any time.”

Richard Childress, the Good Ol’ Boy car owner who runs Dale Earnhardt’s racing team, was talking about his Good Ol’ Boy driver. No one knows the NASCAR champion any better.

The way Earnhardt has been running this year, it’s a statement that seems redundant.

Earnhardt has won 6 of the 8 Winston Cup races, including the last 4.

No one, not Richard Petty nor Fireball Roberts nor Cale Yarborough nor Darrell Waltrip, has ever had such a start in the 38 years since Bill France made stock car racing into a major sport.

Petty won four of the first seven in 1975, the best before Earnhardt won the Mr. Goodwrench 500 at Rockingham, N.C., the Miller 400 at Richmond, Va., the TransSouth 500 at Darlington, S.C., the First Union 400 at North Wilkesboro, N.C., the Valleydale 500 at Bristol, Tenn., and the Sovran Bank 500 at Martinsville, Va.

Earnhardt leads Bill Elliott, the Daytona 500 winner, 1,390 to 1,233, in quest of his third national championship. Back in 1980, in only his second year on the circuit, Earnhardt won his first.

And but for a $12 alternator wire that broke at Atlanta late in the 500-mile race, Earnhardt might have won seven in a row. Before he dropped out of contention with 75 miles remaining, Earnhardt had lapped all but 11 of the 42 starters.

“Is that what Richard said, that I couldn’t stand anyone ahead of me?” Dale repeated, mischievously tugging on a scraggly mustache that gives him the look of a bushwhacker. “If that’s what he says, I can’t argue with my boss now, can I?”

Most drivers would claim similar thoughts, but few carry them to the extreme that Earnhardt does.

If he finds someone ahead of him, and Earnhardt figures he belongs in front, he’ll think nothing to giving the offender--in his mind--a little nudge. Or, if that isn’t enough, a hard nudge.

This philosophy can lead to many things--some good, some bad.

For one, it can create crashes, such as the one a year ago when Earnhardt nudged Waltrip three laps from the finish at Richmond. Before cars stopped spinning and crashing, Earnhardt, Waltrip and four others were wrecked.

This year, Earnhardt’s most conspicuous nudge worked out the way he’d like them all to work. Coming up behind race leader Sterling Marlin midway through the Bristol race, Earnhardt tapped Marlin’s Olds, sending it spinning into the wall. Earnhardt, with a clear track, cruised on to win.

That incident earned Earnhardt a chorus of boos from Tennessee fans, a dressing down from NASCAR competition director Dick Beaty and a scathing comment from old-time driver Coo Coo Marlin, Sterling’s father.

Beaty said he, Earnhardt and Childress “came to an understanding” about the rough driving, but that no action was taken.

“There’s a fine line between aggressiveness and recklessness and I don’t think Earnhardt has crossed it yet,” Beaty said.

Coo Coo said if he were still driving, he would know how to handle it, that he would take Dale “out behind the barn.”

Earnhardt did admit he was wrong in whacking Marlin, but he still relishes his reputation.

“The fans need a bad guy to yell at,” he said. “You don’t want every guy to be a good guy, do you? That would be pretty boring, if you ask me.

“I’d never hit anybody with the idea of wrecking him, but I’ll rub a few fenders. That’s what racing’s all about.

“I grew up watching my daddy rub fenders with Junior Johnson and LeeRoy Yarbrough and Tiny Lund and guys like that. Ain’t no way you can run on a short track and not wham and bang if you’re gonna win anything.”

Dale’s father, Ralph, raced 23 years on short tracks and was the national late model sportsman champion in 1956. He died in 1973 of a heart attack at age 45.

“Short track racing taught me to ask no quarter and give none,” Earnhardt said. “If you don’t win, you lose. It’s as simple as that. And I’m not here to lose.”

But today, in the $625,170 Winston 500, on the longest, fastest stock car racing track in the world, Alabama International Motor Speedway, there is no place for rubbing fenders. Not on a 2.66-mile track where Elliott’s Ford Thunderbird averaged a NASCAR record 212.809 m.p.h. during qualifying.

“Racing at Talladega is like those fighter plane scenes in ‘Top Gun,’ ” said Bobby Allison, last year’s winner. “You don’t need a racing uniform here, you need a flight suit.

“A Boeing 727 and Winston Cup cars have a lot in common. Both want to take off at the speeds we drive at Talladega. The problem with the race car is getting it to go that fast and still stay on the ground.”

Talladega, the drivers say, is a track where you mash the throttle all the way around the huge tri-oval, and what you get is what the engine builder gives you.

Earnhardt knows how to drive the superspeedways, too, however. He has won twice here, in the 1983 and 1984 Talladega 500s in July, and he was second to Allison in last year’s Winston 500.

That race wasn’t decided until the last turn of the last lap, when Allison fought off a desperate challenge by Earnhardt.

“I did everything I could to win,” Earnhardt recalled. “I carried the car up as far as I could, but ol’ Bobby didn’t back out.”

Allison’s win, at age 48, made him the oldest winner in NASCAR history.

“Bobby may be the oldest guy to win a NASCAR race,” Earnhardt said, “but when he went around me on the outside, you would have thought some wild kid was in that car and didn’t know any better.

“When a man gets under you, it is supposed to be impossible to go high and get by, but he did the impossible. He got by up near the fence with his tires smoking.

“The only thing old about that man is his birth certificate.”

It was that second-place finish that moved Earnhardt into the points lead for the first time, a position he never lost before clinching the championship before the final race at Riverside.

“Getting to the front for the first time got us going,” Earnhardt said. “We got on a roll after North Wilkesboro and we just kept it going this year. We won Charlotte and Atlanta and ran second at Riverside at the end of the year, so we’ve won 8 of our last 12 races.

“Of course, I can’t say we expected anything like this. It’s unbelievable, but we’re going to keep on the roll as long as it’ll go with us.”

Seven years ago, after a cocky Earnhardt won his first championship, he said he wanted to win four in a row to break Cale Yarborough’s record of three straight. But the Osterlund team fell apart and Earnhardt not only didn’t repeat, he didn’t even win a race.

“Everything is different now that I’m running with Richard (Childress) and the bunch of guys he’s put together. Our engine builder (Lou LaRosa) is from Brooklyn and our crew chief (Kirk Shelmerdine) is from Philadelphia, but the longer we’re together, the better we mesh.”

Childress credits Earnhardt with having a feel of the car and an ability to communicate that enables Shelmerdine to make adjustments as a race goes along.

“You don’t drive a car so much here as you steer it,” Childress said. “The air turbulence generated from the speeds is so great that handling becomes critical. I’d say handling is even more important than horsepower, and Dale’s input is a big help in that area.”

Perhaps it is because no one is on the track ahead of him during qualifying, but Earnhardt is not the greatest qualifier. His 210.360 lap put him in the third row for today’s race, behind Elliott, Bobby Allison, Davey Allison and Waltrip.

“We’re ready to run,” he said. “Qualifying don’t mean that much here, just as long as you’re somewhere up close to the front.

“I’m ready to run wide open. I can’t wait to get the race started.”

Earnhardt’s 35th birthday was last Wednesday, and Kyle Petty gave him an 8-foot inflatable Godzilla, which looks down on the garage from the top of the 18-wheel mustard yellow and blue transporter that carriers Earnhardt’s No. 3 Chevrolet.

“Kyle might have done it as a joke, but it fits,” one driver said. “Dale thinks he’s Godzilla out there.”

That is exactly what Earnhardt wants them to think.

The term “brash” that once went with Waltrip has been shifted to Earnhardt. Drivers used to call Waltrip “Jaws” because they claimed he was as dangerous as a shark. Earnhardt is known as “Ironhead.” For obvious reasons.

The tough guy image comes naturally to Earnhardt. He grew up tough in Kannapolis, a North Carolina mill town.

“There weren’t any big sponsors in those days, and my daddy raised five kids racing for a living,” he said.

“I always wanted to be just like him, but he didn’t want me racing. I worked at a trailer and tanker garage, at an insulation company, and in a tuneup shop, but I was never happy unless I was working on a race car.”

Earnhardt was beating around the short track bushes when he got his big break. Curiously, it came at the expense of Willy T. Ribbs, a driver from San Jose.

Ribbs was going to drive in his first NASCAR race at Charlotte in 1978 for Will Cronkite. When Ribbs was arrested for driving the wrong way on a one-way street and resisting arrest in Charlotte, he lost the ride and Earnhardt was his replacement.

Earnhardt drove four races for Cronkite when his aggressive style caught the eye of Rod Osterlund, a Northern California businessman who was putting together a Grand National team for Dave Marcis. Osterlund wanted a second driver so he signed Earnhardt.

Marcis quit before the season started and Earnhardt became No. 1. He responded by winning Rookie-of-the-Year honors and the following year stunned his elders by winning the Grand National championship.

Then followed some lean years until 1985, when Earnhardt joined Childress, a former driver from Winston-Salem who started 285 Grand Nationals without winning.

The combination won four races in 1985 and five last year to set the stage for this season’s remarkable start.

“Dale has always been a great racer,” Childress said, “but through the years he has learned from his mistakes. Just the way the whole team has. That’s why the car is running so good now. We make mistakes, but each time we do, we learn from it.”

A win today would tie Earnhardt with Bobby Allison and Richard Petty for most consecutive wins. They each won five straight in 1975 to share the modern-day record.

In 1967, when NASCAR ran 48 races, Petty won 27--including 10 in a row. For that he won $130,275.

In eight races this season, Earnhardt has already won $392,855 and is headed for an additional $400,000 as the champion’s year-end bonus.

Petty is known as The King, but Ironhead isn’t doing bad.

EARNHARDT IS ON A ROLL Dale Earnhardt is off to the best start in stock car racing history, having won 6 of 8 races this year--including four in a row. A race-by-race look at Earnhardt in 1987. DAYTONA 500 FEB. 15 AT DAYTONA, FLA. First place Bill Elliott Second place Benny Parsons Dale Earnhardt 5th place. Winner’s speed 176.263 m.p.h. GOODWRENCH 500 MARCH 1 AT ROCKINGHAM, N.C. First place Dale Earnhardt Second place Ricky Rudd Winner’s speed 117.556 m.p.h. Margin of victory 10.5 seconds. MILLER 400 MARCH 8 AT RICHMOND, VA. First place Dale Earnhardt Second place Geoff Bodine Winner’s speed 81.521 m.p.h. Margin of victory Not available MOTORCRAFT 500 MARCH 15 AT ATLANTA First place Ricky Rudd Second place Benny Parsons Dale Earnhardt 16th place Winner’s speed 133.689 m.p.h. TRANSOUTH 500 MARCH 29 AT DARLINGTON, S.C. First place Dale Earnhardt Second place Bill Elliott Winner’s speed 122.540 m.p.h. Margin of victory 1.23 seconds FIRST UNION 500 APRIL 5 AT NORTH WILKESBORO, N.C. First place Dale Earnhardt Second place Kyle Petty Winner’s speed 94.103 m.p.h Margin of victory 1.72 seconds. VALLEYDALE 500 APRIL 12 AT BRISTOL, TENN. First place Dale Earnhardt Second place Richard Petty Winning speed 75.621 m.p.h. Margin of victory 0.79 seconds SOVRAN BANK 500 APRIL 26 AT MARTINSVILLE, VA. First Place Dale Earnhardt Second Place Rusty Wallace Winner’s Speed 72.808 m.p.h. Margin of Victory 2.82 seconds