He was eventually publicly defended by two of Earnhardt's drivers, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Michael Waltrip, and was also cleared of any wrongdoing by NASCAR's investigation into the accident.

With wins at Atlanta, Bristol, Nashville, Martinsville, and Charlotte, Earnhardt won his first Winston Cup championship.

The 1986 season saw Earnhardt win his second career Winston Cup Championship and the first owner's championship for RCR.

The following year, Earnhardt won five times, but a late spin out at North Wilkesboro arguably cost him the 1989 championship, as Rusty Wallace edged out Earnhardt for the championship.

The 1991 season saw Earnhardt win his fifth Winston Cup championship.

Earnhardt beat Rusty Wallace for the championship by 80 points.

In 1994, Earnhardt achieved a feat that he himself had believed to be impossible – he scored his seventh Winston Cup championship, tying the legendary Richard Petty.

Although Earnhardt continued to dominate in the seasons ahead, this would be his final NASCAR championship.

But in the end, Earnhardt lost the championship to Jeff Gordon by just 34 points.

However, poor performances at the road course of Watkins Glen, where he wrecked coming out of the chicane, a wreck with Chad Little while leading the spring race at Bristol, and mid-pack runs at intermediate tracks like Charlotte and Dover in a season dominated by the Ford Taurus in those tracks of Roush, Yates, and Penske, coupled with the extremely consistent Joe Gibb's No. 18 team with Bobby Labonte, denied Earnhardt the coveted eighth championship title.

Dale Earnhardt won the championship.

The reason the team gave for removing the car from the race was a blown engine, however Bonnett was teamed with points leader Dale Earnhardt, and the car was retired to assist Earnhardt in winning the season's championship.

Earnhardt needed to maximize his finishing position, and by Bonnett quitting the race he was assured of those three championship points.

Dale Earnhardt Sr. won four, including the 2000 championship, before his death in February 2001.

He gained the championship points lead one-third into the season and held onto it for 16 races before dropping it to Dale Earnhardt with two races to go.

Martin was one of three drivers ( Earnhardt and Sterling Marlin ) to be ranked in the top five for all 31 races ; none of them won the championship.

Curb was also a sponsor for Dale Earnhardt during his 1980 Winston Cup championship winning season, and sponsored Darrell Waltrip's # 12 Toyota Tundra in the Craftsman Truck Series, driven by Joey Miller in 2006.

** Earnhardt raced two throwbacks in 2006, one dedicated to his father, using a black paint scheme reminiscent of his father's Busch cars, and a second using a cream-colored design, similar to his late grandfather Ralph's 1956 Sportsman championship.

Yarborough barely missed out on his fourth championship in five years, losing the championship to Dale Earnhardt by 19 points.

The following year, at Childress ' suggestion, Earnhardt joined car owner Bud Moore for the 1982 and 1983 seasons driving the No. 15 Wrangler Jeans Ford Thunderbird ( Earnhardt's only full-time Ford ride in his career ).

Fans began honoring Earnhardt by holding three fingers aloft on the third lap of every NASCAR Cup race, and the television coverage of NASCAR on Fox and NASCAR on NBC went silent for each third lap from Rockingham to the following year's race there in honor of Earnhardt For the first three weeks after Earnhardt's death, on-track incidents brought out the caution flag on lap three.

During the weekend of the 2008 Toyota / Save Mart 350, ESPN reported that Mark Martin was leaving Dale Earnhardt, Inc. following the 2008 season.

Earnhardt, Jr. was not at the race, as he had returned home following the Busch Series ( now known as the Nationwide Series ) race in which he was involved in a late race crash that resulted him to go airborne.

The death of Dale Earnhardt on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 changed Childress's plans, and Harvick began his first Sprint Cup race the following week in Rockingham at the Dura Lube 400.

Keselowski won the pole for the 2011 Coca Cola 600, and the following week, he was able to get the lead with nine laps to go and hold off a charging Dale Earnhardt, Jr. to win the 2011 STP 400 at Kansas Speedway on fuel mileage.

Marcis was replaced by seven time champion Dale Earnhardt, who would begin his rookie campaign the following year.

Although the team started 2003 with a Daytona 500 pole, Green and the team failed to jell as Childress had hoped and later that season, in what amounted to a trade between organizations, Green was replaced by the former driver of the # 1 car at Dale Earnhardt, Inc., Steve Park ( Green took Park's ride at DEI following his firing ).

The team was renamed to E & M Motorsports and made its debut with Joe Nemechek, who had been released from Ginn Racing following its merger with Dale Earnhardt Inc ..

One of his wins that year came at North Wilkesboro, in a race where Harry Gant had a chance to set a single-season record by winning his fifth consecutive race, breaking a record held by Earnhardt.

Earnhardt won early in the year, scoring consecutive victories at Rockingham and Atlanta.

Earnhardt hit the low point of his year when he blacked out early in the Mountain Dew Southern 500 at Darlington in September, causing him to hit the wall.

Earnhardt began the season by winning his Twin 125-mile qualifier race for the ninth straight year.

Earnhardt swept both races for the year at Talladega, leading most observers to conclude that Earnhardt's talent had become limited to the restrictor plate tracks, which require a unique skill set and an exceptionally powerful car to win.

But halfway through the year, Earnhardt began to show some of the old spark.

Earnhardt finished 7th in the standings that year, and looked like a contender again.

In the final lap of the 2001 Cracker Barrel Old Country Store 500, Harvick beat Jeff Gordon by. 006 seconds, the same margin that Earnhardt had won over Bobby Labonte at the same race a year prior, and the images of Earnhardt's longtime gas man, Danny " Chocolate " Myers, crying after the victory, Harvick's tire-smoking burnout on the frontstretch with three fingers held aloft outside the driver's window, and the Fox television call by Mike Joy, Larry McReynolds, and Darrell Waltrip, concluding with " Gordon got loose, but he ( Harvick ) is gonna get him though, it's Harvick!

A similar controversy had befallen Earnhardt, Jr. himself after his father's death in the Daytona 500 a year earlier.

2006: After suffering a blown front left tire early in the race that caused some fender damage, Jimmie Johnson passed Dale Earnhardt Jr. with six laps left to win at Indy for the first time, and became only the second driver to win both the Daytona 500, and Brickyard 400 in the same year.

In 2001, the same year his father was killed at Daytona, Earnhardt was involved in a crash in an ARCA race at Charlotte which killed his good friend Blaise Alexander.

A year later, Earnhardt continued the trend at the 1996 running of The Winston with an 1996 Atlanta Olympics themed car.

Kyle Busch won the Capital City 400 on April 28, 2012, for the fourth year in a row by holding off Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart.

Truex started his first career Cup race for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in the # 1 at Atlanta Motor Speedway later that year, qualifying 33rd and finishing 37th.

He joined Dale Earnhardt, Jr .' s JR Motorsports for the 2009 campaign as the driver of the # 5 Fastenal Chevy, signing on for four appearances for the year.

Evans ' signature orange Modified paint scheme ( GMC truck color Omaha Orange ; black numbers with white shading ) was replicated in 2003 on a Busch Series car driven by New Jersey native Martin Truex, Jr. in his first year on the series driving for Dale Earnhardt, Jr .' s Chance 2 Motorsports.

Five drivers that won the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Milwaukee went on to win the Busch Series championship in the same year ( Steve Grissom-1993, Randy LaJoie-1997, Dale Earnhardt, Jr .- 1998, Jeff Green-2000, Greg Biffle-2002 ).

Shortly afterwards, he was called by car owner Dale Earnhardt, Jr to drive his # 88 United States Navy Chevrolet for JR Motorsports for the rest of the year in the Busch Series, posting five top-ten finishes.

In this year, despite winning two poles and three races ( including the The Winston ), Earnhardt Jr. finished runner-up to Matt Kenseth in the competition for NASCAR Rookie of the Year.

It was run to honor his father during his year and a half with the team until his unexpected release from Ginn Racing mid-way through the 2007 season, after the team merged with Dale Earnhardt, Inc. After the merger, the # 14 went to Stewart-Haas Racing which owner / driver Tony Stewart used the number in honor of childhood hero A. J.