“Because He Is Dale Earnhardt’s Son” – Jeff Gordon Once Cited Reason Behind Dale Jr’s Popularity

Dale Earnhardt Sr was nicknamed The Intimidator. He terrorized his opponents and Jeff Gordon was one of such victims, but he was also someone Gordon respected immensely.

Earnhardt Sr will always go down as one of the best NASCAR drivers that we’ve ever seen. He won truckloads of trophies over his long career. Gordon came to compete with the legend at a time the latter was at the twilight of his career.

Gordon gave him great competition. Between 1993 (the start of Gordon’s career) and 2001 (the unfortunate death of Dale Sr), they both shared 6 NASCAR Cup Series Championships. 

After Dale Sr’s death at Daytona 500, Gordon shared the NASCAR tracks with Dale Jr. While Junior wasn’t as successful as his father, he was still a very good driver and competitor.

Discussing Dale Jr’s career with Larry King, Gordon was asked “Why is his son, you’re on his team, right? why is his son so popular?” 

“Let’s see, because he’s Dale Earnhardt Senior’s son, because his name is Dale Earnhardt Jr. and because he’s a good guy. He’s a great guy, you know. He’s a great race car driver, he’s a great guy and he’s proving it,” said Gordon

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Junior and Gordon were teammates at Hendrick Motorsports for a fair bit of time. They had small incidents of teammate aggression but overall, both drivers have a lot of respect for each other and share warm relations.

Jeff Gordon and Dale Jr go back in time for some Intimidator memories

On Dale Jr’s YouTube channel, the two teammates shared some stories of the legend, Dale Sr.

One story that comes up is about a race in Japan. Dale Jr said “It was my first race, and I ran him into the wall… I was so happy that I beat dad.”

He goes on to then narrate what happened when Dale Sr and he were in the trailer. “I’m changing and he’s taking his shoes off. I bent over to tie my shoe or something and a freaking driving shoe went right over the top of my head but I wasn’t looking at him so it would have hit me slap in the face. I was like, ‘Man he is pissed’. He didn’t say a word.”

The story goes on to show why Dale Sr was known as The Intimidator.

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Gordon has a lot of respect for Dale Sr despite having competed with him for the majority of his career. The latter’s career was an epoch in itself. NASCAR will never find another driver like him.