Dale Earnhardt, Jr: A Biography

Dale Earnhardt, Jr. is a third-generation stock car driver, preceded by his grandfather Ralph and his father Dale, Sr. Earnhardt's first race car was a 1979 Monte Carlo that he owned with his half-brother Kerry. At the age of 17, Earnhardt raced that car in the Street Stock Division at the Concord Motorsports Park in North Carolina.

Earnhardt, frequently called "Junior," began racing full-time in the NASCAR Busch Series for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. in 1998. He won consecutive Busch Series Championships in 1998 and 1999 and moved into the Winston Cup Series in the year 2000. Earnhardt currently drives the Number 88 car in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for Hendrick Motorsports. He also drives the Number 5 car in the Nationwide Series, the predecessor to the Busch Series often promoted as NASCAR's "minor league circuit," for his and Hendrick's team called JR Motorsports.

While racing is his first love, Earnhardt has a variety of other interests. He owns two dogs, two cats, two buffalo (named Laverne and Shirley) and three longhorns. He owns Hammerhead Entertainment, a media production company that created and produces the racing trivia TV show Back in the Day which Earnhardt also hosts on SPEED. Hammerhead also produces Shifting Gears, a show airing on ESPN2. Earnhardt is one of a group of investors involved in building Alabama Motorsports Park, a Dale Earnhardt, Jr. speedway located near Mobile, Alabama. The speedway will feature stock car racing, KART racing and a road course. Ever diversifying, Earnhardt opened a bar in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, called Whiskey River in April of 2008. And the icing on the cake-or, rather, the candy bar? Earnhardt has a candy bar called "Big Mo" (named after his hometown of Mooresville, North Carolina) with the R. M. Palmer Company. "Big Mo" is a 2.5-ounce milk chocolate car with your choice of caramel or peanut butter fillings.

A media darling, Earnhardt has appeared in advertisements for Budweiser, KFC, NAPA, Domino's Pizza, Gillette, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Drakkar Noir Cologne, Wrangler Jeans, Chevrolet, Army National Guard, Polaris Industries ATVs, Tylenol Rapid Release Gels, Champion Spark Plugs, and AMP Energy Drink. He appeared in the television comedy Yes, Dear, the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and numerous music videos. He hosts a show on XM Satellite Radio's XM Sports Nation called Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s Unrestricted.

Although since 1999, Earnhardt has started 303 races, won 17 of those races, and finished in the top five in 82 of those races; it's good to know he has something to fall back on in case this racing thing doesn't pan out.

Bibliography:
http://www.infoplease.com/biography/var/daleearnhardtjr.html
Masters, Ron Lee; Pearce, Al; "Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Inside the Rise of a NASCAR Superstar," MBI Publishing, 2006