Becoming Earnhardt Vol. 1 - Proving Himself to a Ghost

The Dale Jr. Download

Dirty Mo Media & SiriusXM

Sports

5 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1979, Dale Earnhardt scored the biggest opportunity of his budding career to run in the NASCAR Cup Series full-time for upcoming car owner Rod Osterlund. While there are remnants of that season’s events preserved through television and radio broadcasts, as well as other memorabilia, Dale’s older sister Kaye did what any supportive sibling in the 70s would do: she started scrapbooking. Within these scrapbook pages lie a comprehensive picture of what the 1979 NASCAR season was like from the perspective of the rookie Kannapolis driver. Decades later, it was these very scrapbooks that inspired Dale Earnhardt Jr. to create a new podcast series documenting the monumental season and his father’s rapid, meteoric rise to stock car stardom.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media.
0:05.8	The sensational driver from Canapolis, North Carolina, Dale Earnhardt, and the
0:11.4	Australian Racing Oars will be used.
0:14.6	This is a podcast about Dale Earnhardt, but not the Dale Earnhardt that you remember.
0:20.5	This is the Dale Earnin heart before the intimidator
0:23.3	this is before the seven championships and before he drove the number three this is the
0:30.5	delern heart of 1979 when he was nothing but a long hair rough around the edges you can't say
0:36.6	enough about this young driver.
0:37.9	He made the veterans sit up and take notice of his driving style.
0:41.6	I was five years old, and as any five-year-old would be,
0:45.4	I was completely unaware of my dad's passion and oblivious to the significance that season would have on his career.
0:53.0	And that's not to say I wouldn't come to view
0:54.9	the 1979 season as the most significant in NASCAR history for far more reasons than just my
1:02.3	dad being in it. There was a fight between Kail Yarbril and Donnie Allison. The tempers
1:07.5	overflowing. They're angry. They know they have lost. And what a bitter defeat.
1:14.2	To this day, that's still one of the most watched NASCAR television broadcasts ever.
1:20.1	In 1979, the series had all the ingredients to catapult NASCAR into the American mainstream.
1:26.5	And that is exactly what happened.
1:29.3	But not until recently did I have my eyes opened up to 1979 in ways I'd never imagined possible.
1:36.6	Let me explain.
1:37.4	Let me explain.
1:58.0	No. On December 25, 2021, my grandmother, Martha Earnhardt passed away.
	...

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