Ralph Dale Earnhardt, Sr. ( April 29, 1951February 18, 2001 ) was an American race car driver, best known for his involvement in stock car racing for NASCAR.

Earnhardt was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, on April 29, 1951, to Martha Coleman and Ralph Lee Earnhardt, who was then one of the best short-track drivers in North Carolina.

Ralph was a hard teacher for Earnhardt, and after Ralph died of a heart attack at his home in 1973, it took many years before Earnhardt felt as though he had finally " proven " himself to his father.

When Earnhardt was 17, he married his first wife, Latane Brown, in 1968.

During this race, Earnhardt was briefly forced into the infield grass, but kept control of his car and returned to the track without giving up his lead — a maneuver now referred to as the " Pass in the Grass " even though Earnhardt actually didn't pass and couldn't have passed anyone for position as he was in the lead at the time.

During this season Earnhardt garnered a second nickname, " The Man in Black ", owing to the black paint scheme in which the No. 3 car was painted.

When the green flag waved, Earnhardt was leading Derrike Cope.

Earnhardt was very consistent, scoring four wins, and after Ernie Irvan was sidelined due to a near-deadly crash at Michigan ( the two were neck-and-neck at the top of the points up until the crash ), won title by over 400 points over Mark Martin.

When asked, Earnhardt said that vacating the No. 3 car was the hardest thing he'd ever done.

Once again in the hunt for the Daytona 500 with 10 laps to go, Earnhardt was taken out of contention by a late crash which sent his car upside down on the backstretch.

Mike Dillon ( Richard Childress's son-in-law ) was brought in to relieve Earnhardt for the remainder of the race.

Earnhardt was evaluated at a local hospital and cleared to race the very next week, but the cause of the blackout and double vision was never determined.

But by lap 138, Earnhardt had taken the lead, and thanks to a push by teammate Mike Skinner, he was able to maintain it.

Afterwards, there was a large show of respect for Earnhardt, in which every crew member of every team lined pit road to shake his hand as he made his way to victory lane.

Earnhardt was able to climb back to 8th in the final standings.

Labonte had four fresh tires and Earnhardt was driving on old tires, which made Earnhardt's car considerably slower.

Earnhardt successfully defended his championship the following year, visiting victory lane eleven times and winning the championship by 489 points over Bill Elliott.

Earnhardt went on to win nine races this season and won his fourth Winston Cup title, beating Mark Martin by 26 points.

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 beat Rusty Wallace for the championship by 80 points.

Earnhardt sealed the deal at Rockingham by winning the race over Rick Mast.

Earnhardt started off the 1995 season by finishing second in the Daytona 500 to Sterling Marlin.

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

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

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.

At the 2001 Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 18, 2001, Earnhardt was involved in a car accident after the final lap, in which Earnhardt's car was pushed into the wall nose-first by Ken Schrader's car at an estimated speed of.

Special pennants bearing the No. 3 were distributed to everyone at the track to honor Earnhardt, and the Childress team wore blank uniforms out of respect, something which disappeared quickly and was soon replaced by the previous GM Goodwrench Service Plus uniforms.

The Earnhardt team car, the RCR number 29 Chevrolet driven by Kevin Harvick, still always displays the Earnhardt stylized number 3 on the " B " posts ( metal portion on each side of the car to the rear of the front windows ) above the number 29.

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.

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 common misconception is that Richard Childress Racing " owns the rights " to the No. 3 in NASCAR competition ( fueled by the fact that Kevin Harvick's car has a little No. 3 as an homage to Earnhardt and the usage of the No. 3 on the Camping World Series truck of Ty Dillon ), but in fact no team owns the rights to this or any other number: However, according to established NASCAR procedures, RCR would have priority over other teams if and when the time came to reuse the number.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. wins the event and celebrates by driving around the track with an American flag out the window.

Controversy over leaked autopsy photos led to a protest by NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Video of the crash showed what appeared to be a fatal incident, but once medical workers arrived at the car, Earnhardt climbed out and waved to the crowd, refusing to be loaded onto a stretcher despite a broken collarbone, sternum, and shoulder blade.

Many thought the incident would end his season early, but Earnhardt refused to give up.

" I didn't mean to turn him around, I just wanted to rattle his cage ", Earnhardt said of the incident.

The February 23, 1986 incident at Richmond International Raceway was inaccurately depicted, where Earnhardt spun out Darrell Waltrip with three laps to go.

The largest incident was a flip at Pocono Raceway when he spun into and was turned by teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and hit the infield barrier with tremendous velocity, flipping over.

Although Ralph did not want his son to follow in his footsteps, Earnhardt would not be persuaded to give up his dream of racing, dropping out of school to race.

Earnhardt still made the trip to the annual Awards Banquet with Rusty Wallace but did not have the best seat in the house.

Earnhardt did not win again in 1996, but still finished 4th in the standings behind Terry Labonte, Jeff Gordon and Dale Jarrett.

In 2011, two-car tandem drafting was used for the extent of the Aaron's 499, with many drivers drafting their own teammates ( e. g., Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. drafted together, as did Jeff Gordon and Mark Martin ).

Dale Earnhardt did give a gun to Neil Bonnett as a gift and their friendship is accurate.

After the death of his boss Dale Earnhardt in a crash on the final lap of the aforementioned race, he did not have another top-ten finish until returning to Daytona in July, where he finished second to his teammate Dale Earnhardt, Jr .; he wound up finishing 24th in the standings.

The late Dale Earnhardt appeared in the game as a driver as a result of entering his name as a Create-A-Car driver's name, he did not appear in the previous game due to his death.

Earnhardt did not have a top-ten finish in 2003, and was released after the Tropicana Twister 300.

With 26 laps left, Bobby Allison changed the right side tires, and in a process that Petty later described as " follow the leader ", Buddy Baker, Dale Earnhardt and Ricky Rudd did the same.