Dale Earnhardt Jr. #8 with Dale Earnhardt Inc and Dale Earnhardt #3 with Richard Childress Racing are in action during the All-Star race at Lowes Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina. (Craig Jones/Allsport Photo) ยป More Photos
But what the race-winner remembered most was what happened afterwards. “That win here in the All-Star race was, and still is, the favorite moment of my career — being in victory lane with my Dad,” said Earnhardt Jr. “The wins that I had before, he would come in and shake everybody's hand and take off. That was the only victory lane that he stood in the entire time-he was there for the whole half-hour, 45 minutes we were there, even as the car was taken off for inspection he continued to stay.”
It was a true family moment. “He was talking to his brother, Danny, and the guys on the team,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “He was really enjoying not only the father-son relationship, but I think he was enjoying the fact that he had built a team that was the winner of the All-Star race.”
This was the Earnhardt family’s home track and making a strong showing here in front of friends and family. Earnhardt imparted that to his son early on and it stuck.
“That was a big, important race to him,” Earnhardt Jr. said of his late father. “It's the best of the best. There are no points, there is no reason to be conservative. There is no excuse for not having your A game for that race. It ain't, ‘Well, I took a fourth or a top-five because it was a great points day,’ or whatever. It's all out. There are no excuses and you come with your A game, you run hard and that's what you get in the end. That was your best that night. That was a race and a format that Dad really admired.”
“It meant the most to him,” Earnhardt Jr. said. “It was right up there with winning the (Daytona) 500. I think winning it as a car owner was something he never really imagined, so that was pretty cool to see him enjoy that moment that night.”
And that’s why it made moment No. 2 on SPEEDtv.com’s list.
Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to
SPEED will televise the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race XXIV and the NASCAR Sprint Showdown live on May 17, as well as provide more than
90 hours of support programming prior to the event. Stay tuned to SPEEDtv.com for frequent updates on the history of the event and all the details about this year’s action.Watch and Win!
