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Picture was taken at Dale Earnhardt home in Kannapolis, NC just outside Winston-Salem NC, not to far from our Dad's home of Lattimore.  Eddie visited Earnhardt establishment a few months after Dale Earnhardt's fatal crash at Daytona.  The mood was somber but with a "Dale wants us to carry on" attitude. It was work as usual, a winning way of life. 

I had a chance to visit with Kerry Earnhardt for a while and we talked about his Dad and all the times they came out to Uvalde and south Texas area deer hunting.  He showed me some of the deer heads mounted here in Uvalde displayed at the Earnhardt establishment. Dale Sr. was an avid deer hunter in the offseason and almost always came to this area to do just that.  It was uncanny the resemblence between Kerry and his dad.  Kerry is currently racing Nascar in the Busch series.  Next year will break into the Winston Nascar circuit. Word is that Snap-On Tools is building a car for Kerry.

Also visited with Dale Jr., both were extremly nice and courteous.  The whole atmosphere was family like between all the drivers like Steve Park and Michael Waltrip as well. Jr told me a story about how he was coming from Bristol speedway with his buddies and came through a small town a little fast and a local officer pulled in behind him.  The officer saw the Dale Jr license plate and just turned away.  He said he guessed name had its privleges.  It was a great visit with all the drivers.  Steve Park told me how Dale Sr. kept trying to get ahold of him to join his race team and Steve kept hanging up thinking it was a prank by his buddies.  Finally one day Dale showed up in his private jet

and was really mad that he kept hanging up on him and wanted to know if Steve wanted to work for him or not.  He knew it was for real then and all his friends tongues were hanging out as he flew away with the greatest Nascar driver of all time.

 

                                 Eddie McKinney