Black and White pencil drawing portrait by J. McCombie.
This piece can be made available in the other formats and colours you find in my Mixed Media Gallery at my website.
Ralph Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (born October 10, 1974), better known simply as Dale Earnhardt, Jr., is an American stock car racing driver and team owner, who currently drives the No. 88 Chevrolet SS in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for Hendrick Motorsports, and drives the No. 88 Chevrolet Camaro for his own team, JR Motorsports, in selected events in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. He is the son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Dale Earnhardt, Sr., and the grandson of both NASCAR driver Ralph Earnhardt and stock car fabricator Robert Gee. Earnhardt, Jr. is also the half-brother of former driver Kerry Earnhardt, the uncle of driver Jeffrey Earnhardt, and the stepson of Earnhardt Ganassi Racing team co-owner Teresa Earnhardt. Earnhardt, Jr. has won the Most Popular Driver Award ten times (consecutively from 2003-2012). He has an estimated net worth of $300 million.
Earnhardt, Jr. owns Hammerhead Entertainment, a media production company that created and produces the TV show Back In the Day, which airs on SPEED. Hammerhead also produced “Shifting Gears”, a show on ESPN2 that chronicled his 2008 team switch.
He is partners with a group of investors who are building Alabama Motorsports Park, a Dale Earnhardt Jr. Speedway. The track is located near Mobile, Alabama and will feature stock car racing, KART racing and a road course. This will join with his partial ownership of Paducah International Raceway. Earnhardt has also opened a bar named Whisky River in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina in April 2008; he later opened a second Whisky River in Jacksonville, Florida.
In August 2012, Earnhardt, Jr. entered the automobile dealer business, opening Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Buick-GMC-Cadillac in Tallahassee, Florida in association with car owner Rick Hendrick.
Earnhardt, Jr. hosted a show on Sirius XM Radio’s Sirius XM Sports Nation called Dale Earnhardt, Jr.‘s Unrestricted.
He appeared in the 2006 film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. In the movie, he is seen asking Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) for his autograph, and tells Ricky "don’t tell any of the other drivers." There is also a deleted scene on the DVD where he calls Ricky a “dirty liar” and asks him for money he owed him. The No. 8 car also appeared in Herbie: Fully Loaded in the final race where Herbie overtook him. His No. 88 car also appeared in the 2011 film Transformers: Dark of the Moon as Roadbuster of the Wreckers, a trio of NASCAR stock cars equipped with armor on the front that can transform into heavy artillery tanks (the other Wreckers were based on the No. 42 and No. 48 cars driven respectively by Juan Pablo Montoya and Jimmie Johnson). The Wrecker versions of these cars circled the track during the opening pace laps of the 2011 Daytona 500 (Josh Duhamel, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Michael Bay were also the grand marshals for that race, in which Earnhardt crashed on lap 203 after making contact with Ryan Newman).
He has made appearances in several music videos, including: “Show Me What You Got” with Jay-Z along with Danica Patrick; Matthew Good Band’s video for Anti-Pop, as he is friends with band frontman, Matthew Good; Sheryl Crow’s “Steve McQueen” music video; Trace Adkins video entitled “Rough and Ready”; Three Doors Down’s “The Road I’m On” along with Tony Stewart; O.A.R.‘s “Right on Time”; Nickelback’s “Rockstar” along with other celebrities; and “Warrior” by Kid Rock.
His voice is featured in the video game Scarface: The World is Yours. He voiced himself in Disney/Pixar’s movie Cars as an No. 8 car (painted in resemblance to Earnhardt’s actual car) named “Junior” with the DEI logo on the hood. The Budweiser logos were censored from the No. 8 to prevent alcoholic advertising to gain a “G” (General) rating. His voice was used for the character Chase Davis in an episode of the Disney Channel’s Handy Manny. Chase helps Manny compete in the Wood Valley 500 auto race.