Becoming Earnhardt Vol. 2 - First Impressions

The Dale Jr. Download

Dirty Mo Media & SiriusXM

Sports

5 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s January of 1979, and 28-year-old Dale Earnhardt is ready to embark on the greatest challenge he’s faced in his young career to date: a full season in the NASCAR Cup Series. As the teams and haulers head west to California to kick things off, we zero in on the blue-and-yellow Osterlund Racing No. 2, which Dale will chauffeur for the first time on a road course. After a promising afternoon, his overzealousness gets the best of him, and the Rookie of the Year spotlight is shifted to another promising newcomer.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following is a production of Dirtymo Media.
0:06.0	With open wheel racing going through a national divorce in 1978, it's rain as America's top brand of motorsports was in doubt.
0:19.0	The timing was perfect for stock cars to come in and capture the
0:23.6	hearts and minds of a country that didn't know if it had a stomach for fenders and fisticus.
0:29.2	Well, NASCAR's 1979 season fed us all we wanted and more. Like NASCAR, 28-year-old rookie Dale Earnhardt was trying to make a name for
0:39.9	himself. Up until that point, people didn't know him as the seven-time champion or one tough
0:46.7	customer. Whatever notoriety he had was more for being the son of Ralph Earnhardt. Everything changed in 1979,
0:55.7	not just in how NASCAR became America's favorite motorsport,
0:59.2	but in how my dad became the Dale Earnhardt, we'd come to know.
1:04.9	I am Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
1:06.8	And on this episode of Becoming Earnhardt,
1:08.8	we open up the family scrapbooks to begin our race-by-race journey through the 1979 NASCAR season.
1:17.6	And my dad's number two, Australon Racing Team.
1:20.6	Our first stop, California.
1:24.6	Well, hello, everyone, from Riverside, California.
1:27.1	Barney Hall and Jackie Root and the entire Motor Racing Network crew
1:29.7	ready to bring you the kickoff race of the 1979 Winston Cup racing season,
1:34.2	the Winston Western 500.
1:35.7	Riverside International Raceway first opened in 1957,
1:40.1	and it was located about 50 miles east of Los Angeles.
1:44.2	NASCAR begins competing on the nine-turned 2.6-mile course in 1958.
1:50.2	By the early 60s, it's an annual stop on the Grand National Schedule,
	...

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