From the day Dale was born, I’ve taken seriously my role as his big sister. Our mom told me I loved having a baby brother and wanted to treat Dale like my own little baby from the very start. According to her, I was always eager to help with him and felt a sense of responsibility for him at quite a young age. That became even more true when Mom moved to Virginia, and Dad and Teresa were busy with his racing.
In a YouTube interview about this time in our lives, Dale says:
Kelley really became my caretaker and caregiver. She made sure I wasn’t dressed like a fool for school, and she made sure I had money in my pocket for lunch. She made sure I’d done my homework and wasn’t going to get in trouble. . . . We had daily chores, and she made sure they were done and I was doing what I was supposed to be doing to keep me out of trouble. She coddled me and really took care of me. Dad wasn’t taking care of me. I mean, he was racing and gone, and Teresa was with him. But Kelley was there. Kelley is the one who was there with me every day. We had housekeepers, and we had two, three, four different nannies that were around. But I never created a relationship with them. My sister was the one I went to every day, for everything.1
According to our mom, when Dale and I were young, I was the one who needed to be entertained, enjoyed having other people around, and didn’t like being alone. I wanted to be busy all the time. Dale, on the other hand, was content to spend time playing with his toys and could easily entertain himself. He didn’t need company and was more self-sufficient than I was.
Another difference between Dale and me—one that would become significant through our teenage years—is that I was a rule follower and he was not. Dad liked to live by rules, so he and I got along well in that regard. If he said we had to get all As on our report cards at school, I got all As. I did so because he expected me to do it.
I didn’t seek accolades or applause for good grades, partly because I was content to meet Dad’s expectations but mostly because I didn’t like the consequences of failing to meet them. Getting in trouble because of a low grade only amplified what I already felt was missing between Dad and me, so I worked hard to avoid it. I never understood why grades were important to my dad, because he wasn’t given to explaining anything. We never had conversations about why making good grades was a good idea, nor did he give me any reason or encouragement to excel in school. He simply said, “Make As.” So I made As without understanding why it mattered. All I knew was that it would keep me from getting in trouble—and being in trouble caused me to feel unloved.
My dad never asked me what subjects I liked in school or why I liked them. He didn’t know which classes were difficult for me, and he didn’t offer to arrange for someone to help me with them. He had no idea who my favorite teachers were, who my friends were, or what caused me to struggle. He wasn’t one to hand out prizes or praise when I did well; he simply viewed it as me doing what I was supposed to do.
People might assume that Dale and I started racing when we were very young because were born into a family so strongly identified with NASCAR. We did not. In fact, our dad didn’t encourage us to become involved in the sport at all. He certainly didn’t push Dale to become a driver. While some fathers are eager for their sons to grow up and follow in their footsteps, and my dad had become a racecar driver like his father, he didn’t discuss racing with Dale when Dale was young. My brother learned about NASCAR the same way I did—by watching and listening to our dad and by being surrounded by people involved in the sport.
Dale’s unusual level of exposure to NASCAR definitely gave him a desire to race, but because Dad and Teresa were both consumed with the sport, no one ever took time to identify Dale’s true interests and help him pursue them.
Even though I was surrounded by cars, drivers, and pit crews more than many girls my age were, I spent most afternoons playing Barbie dolls with my neighbor. At the same time, I was also a tomboy. I loved adventure and adrenaline, and I would try almost anything. At a young age, I mastered go-karts and minibikes, always looking for a thrill. My hunger for a rush is genetic; I inherited it from my dad, and it’s still a part of who I am today.
Dale, however, is not wired like I am. He loves a good adrenaline rush now, but I didn’t see that side of him when we were young. He craved attention, but he didn’t seek it through following rules or making good grades. While I strove to please Dad in order to avoid negative attention, Dale wanted Dad to take notice of him—at any cost. Unlike me, he was willing to suffer the consequences of letting Dad down, so he found ways to be noticed for all the wrong reasons. He got plenty of attention; it was just bad attention.
I realized that getting into trouble was a two-edged sword for Dale. In one way, it allowed him to gain the attention he longed for, but in other ways it was painful for him. Maybe that’s why I spent so much time as a child and teenager getting him out of trouble, trying to make him feel better, looking out for him, feeling sorry for him, and helping him. For example, after meals he and I were supposed to clean our dishes, but he never did. I can’t count the times I cleaned his dishes for him simply to keep him out of trouble.
At one point, the situation became so bad that Dale couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble. In an effort to help him, Dad sent both of us to a Christian school. The school expelled Dale after one semester, so in 1986 Dad sent him to military school.
It’s important to understand what was taking place in our family during this time. Two years earlier, Dad had started Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI). NASCAR fans know that while DEI was an ownership group, my dad didn’t race for them. I don’t think that kind of arrangement happens in other professional sports, but it is allowable in NASCAR. Instead, he raced almost his entire career for Richard Childress Racing.
My dad and Richard Childress were extremely close friends—best friends, I would say—and hunting buddies. They were not only colleagues on the racetrack; they also traveled and spent their free time together. Richard Childress Racing’s website declares, “The Childress-Earnhardt duo was lightning in a bottle.”2 My dad was the team’s only driver for twenty-five years. People have wondered why my dad continued to drive for Richard Childress even after he became an owner. Part of the answer is that he was loyal and he appreciated the opportunities and support Richard Childress had given him. All Dad ever really wanted was to own cars and to compete. His need to compete was met at Richard Childress Racing, and his desire to own cars was met through DEI.
As Dad became a sports celebrity and began earning more than enough money to live on, starting DEI made sense for him and Teresa. The company was a first-of-its-kind, personality-based business conglomerate to house all things Dale Earnhardt. He had become a sports powerhouse, and DEI was the headquarters for his personal brand as well as an entity through which he could own racecars and have his own drivers. It was not uncommon for one of his cars to race against one of Richard Childress’s cars. In many ways, NASCAR is just one big family, and sometimes siblings and cousins fight!
I don’t know whether the intensifying of Dale’s bad behavior was related to the early years of DEI, which required so much of our dad’s time and energy. I do know that I considered Dale’s being sent to military school a very serious matter, and I was genuinely worried about him there. He was short and scrawny, with legs that never tanned, and I was concerned that the other students would tease him. I knew for certain that if he ever got in a fight with one of the big boys, he wouldn’t win.
After three weeks of constantly worrying about Dale at military school, I decided I needed to be closer. So I asked Dad if I could go to military school too. I spent the second half of my ninth-grade year and all of my tenth-grade year there, looking after Dale. He still can’t believe I wanted to go. He has often said, “Military school is like punishment. What kind of ninth grader says, ‘I miss my brother. I’m going to go to military school?’”
I did.
I am not sure what compelled me to be so protective of Dale that I followed him to military school. Perhaps it was because he always chose negative ways to seek attention, and I was afraid of how bad that could become. I remember wondering at one point, How much more trouble can you stand to get into?
After a year and a half at military school, Dale and I both returned home to finish high school at our local public school. We fought often with Teresa and continued to take refuge in each other. Dale tried to stay out of trouble, and we both did the best we could.
I finished high school in 1990 and fulfilled one of my dad’s dreams for his children—for us to go to college. Eager to move out of Dad and Teresa’s house, I narrowed my college choices to three, based on discussions with our school guidance counselor and on where my friends wanted to go: Western Carolina University, Appalachian State University, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. Two of those schools were in the mountains, and one was near the beach. I chose the beach and enrolled at UNC Wilmington.
Since I had followed Dale to military school, he and I had both matured. He entered eleventh grade when I started my freshman year of college. Letting him go away by himself as a seventh grader when I knew other students would pick on him was one thing, but leaving him at home as a junior in high school was different. He had a driver’s license by that time, so he was more independent and stable than he had ever been. I knew he would be okay, and I was eager to move away from home. For once in my life, I didn’t feel bad about leaving my brother!
One of my favorite memories with my dad took place around the time of my high school graduation, not long before I left for college. The two of us went to his farm together, and on the way, we stopped at an auto parts store to buy a gas cap for a car that had been sitting in his farm shop for several weeks. To me, that white two-door Chevrolet Z24 was a genuinely cool car, unlike the SS Fastback. I would have loved to have it, but Dad was keeping it for a friend who needed to hide it before surprising his child with it.
When we arrived at the farm shop, we went to take a look at the Z24. He tossed me a gas cap, saying, “Go put this on your new car.”
What? I thought. What’s he talking about?
The car already had a gas cap. The new one was simply Dad’s way of telling me the car was mine.
I never imagined that Z24 would be my graduation gift from Dad. He had never asked me what kind of car I wanted or what my dream car would be, but I was excited.
That was my high school graduation celebration. There was no special meal, no party, and no fanfare—just Dad and me in the shop with the car. It was better than any other celebration could have been.
When I left for college, I packed the Z24 and headed to Wilmington. Mom met me there to help me outfit my dorm room. I had chosen a few items before I left home but was not able to buy much, so I was thankful that Mom took me shopping for a few more essentials. Not long after I arrived, I secured a job in a retail store in the local mall in order to make spending money.
I had no idea what the future would hold. Some of what lay before me I could have never predicted, and I would change it if I could. No doubt being Dale Earnhardt’s daughter has afforded me some unique professional advantages and opportunities, for which I will always be grateful. But my starting position didn’t set me up for personal success. What I’ve learned though through the years is that you don’t need to start on the pole. With enough determination and the right help, you can come from behind to win.