Earnhardt’s 1980 season momentum swings wildly: strong point leads and back-to-back wins are followed by mechanical failures, team instability, and escalating tensions. The crew’s gamble with worn tires at Atlanta pays off for Dad’s first win of the year, while Bristol delivers another dominant finish after Kale Yarborough’s engine trouble. Off-track drama includes an FBI probe into alleged stolen-car rings tied to Joe Millican’s team, plus LGD Witt shutting down operations. As Earnhardt’s aggressive driving sparks veteran backlash and pit-road chaos, the episode frames the real question: can the team survive long enough to chase the championship?
Topics:1980 season momentum swingstire gamble at atlantaback-to-back wins at bristol and atlantakale yarborough engine failurefbi investigation into stolen carsjoe millican losing his ridemechanical attrition and engine failuresmartinsville aggressive first-lap incidentveteran backlash and team tensions
It’s February of 1980, and Dale Earnhardt is hungry to return to victory lane. The Osterlund-2 car hasn't brought home a win since David Pearson filled in for Dale at the Southern 500 the previous year. Plus, with a new contract and sponsorship comes expectations, so needless to say, he’s eager to hold up his end of the bargain. Thankfully, he won’t have to wait long, as he overcomes adversity at Atlanta for his first speedway win and follows it up with a repeat at Bristol. He quickly goes from a potential flash-in-the-pan, one-time winner to etching his name into the NASCAR history books.
But racing is a humbling sport, and his jubilation won’t last long. More engine problems and a lack of speed would relegate him back to the middle of the pack, and that pressure to perform would build up again. Unfortunately, this time, the pressure pushes Dale to make a blunderous mistake on the opening lap of the spring Martinsville event, and he has a run-in with a fella you never want to cross: King Richard Petty.
FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call (800) 327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
"...year. I don't see any reason why I can't win the Grand National Championship this year. I just want to win, win, ..."
Select text to request an explanation
The following is a production of Dirty Moe Media.
This episode of Becoming Earnhardt is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops,
North America's premier outdoor and conservation company.
Plan your next adventure at a Bass Pro Shops near you or online at BassPro.com.
Later in the episode, my sister Kelly shares her unique perspective on life with Dad away from the racetrack.
Now buckle up, here's a brand new episode of Becoming Earnhardt presented by Bass Pro Shops.
You know, running with these guys I run with, Kale and Richard and Don and these guys,
you race with them and you know, if you're smart at all, you pick up on what they're doing
and they'll use it against you and they'll beat you with it,
but they're not gonna beat me with it a few times and I'm gonna be using it against them.
It's pretty remarkable to see the speed that the Australin team is able to find so early in their existence.
We know Jake Elder, the crew chief, is bringing a lot of experience to the table,
but these are some of the greatest teams and minds in history that they're going up against.
We're talking about Junior Johnson.
Petty Enterprises, Bud Moore.
Lot of great teams.
Had a couple things going differently.
In the first two races of the 1980 season, Dad might be sitting with two strikes in the win call.
Just exploding and engine as he works his way on.
Dad's eager to take the team back to Victor Lane because we gotta remember last time that this team won,
Dad wasn't even driving the car.
That was David Pearson behind the wheel at the Southern 500.
They've been running well, leading the points, but NASCAR in 1980 didn't hand out job security for close enough.
Something had to break loose and it will.
Daryl Walters and Dale Earnhardt play hopscotch, lead frog, and change places.
Earnhardt is wedged into the middle of the veteran.
Daryl Walters playing the role of a rabbit, but closing down rapidly right up on his back.
That lift now is at Dale Earnhardt.
Number two, Dale Earnhardt is your new leader.
Earnhardt really found a home with a rare buffer of 10 yard rule.
A young superstar from Catapolis, North Carolina.
If I can lead, that's where I want to be.
After the Daytona 500 and Speed Weeks, the series is headed to Richmond.
And Dad's going to have a solid run there.
He's going to run fifth in a chaos field race that included Dad's rookie of the year rival, Joe Millican, crashing out of the track.
Millican tagged the third turn guard rail, sails over the barrier, and landed on his side against the wooden fence beyond the track surface.
It was a savage crash.
Daryl Walters, he's going to go on to win the race.
In the next week at Rockingham, Dad's going to have another solid run.
He's leading a few laps there and coming home in seventh place.
And he now leads the point standings by 52 over Richard Petty.
He's 177 points ahead of Kell Yarbrough.
Now, during the race at Rockingham, it was reported as many as 11 FBI agents were investigating LGD Witt's team, driven by Joe Millican, who started second.
During the race, an anonymous phone call was placed to Tom Higgins in the press box, saying the FBI was investigating the team for interstate traffic of stolen cars.
The FBI was looking into a theft to order ring where car thieves would find customers who wanted a cheap car and they would go out and steal what the customer wanted.
It was said that crew chief Bobby Hudson had bought a stolen Pontiac Trans Am from someone he met at Talladega.
Later this year in October, Bobby Hudson and two of his brothers were arrested on charges of receiving, concealing and transporting stolen vehicles.
When the Cup Series heads to Atlanta, things get off to a shaky start for the Australin team.
Dad's gonna have mechanical problems in qualifying and settle for only a 31st starting position.
On that grid Sunday morning, Dad says, I only got a few hours sleep last night.
I think the team's morale is about as low as I've seen it. We just couldn't get it running.
Things sure turned around in the last 24 hours.
We're gonna get a green. Buddy maker Neil Bonnet starts picking up the speed and the Atlanta 500 is gonna be underway.
Dale Earnhardt, who started 31st in the field, is now running third after only 37 laps completed. A man on the move.
We're gonna get this race going and Kale Yarbrough's gonna be dominant, leading 183 laps before his engine goes solid.
I feel like we won the race. We just didn't get paid for it. That's what Kale says.
In an article in the stock car racing magazine, Goodyear engineers are telling Jake Elder, the tires on Dad's car,
were so warned that there was no way he could finish the race without a pit stop.
This is the time of the race where the drivers are hearing everything going on in a car.
He feels every vibration. He hears every knock and he just counts the laps off with the starter.
Elder said after the race, if you want to be a superstar, sometimes you have to take chances.
They were down to the fabric, but I figured those tires had another 10 laps in them.
And he has a big watermelon brand underneath that Apple bar by the side.
Dale Earnhardt, the rookie driver for just a few years back now becoming a very big strong veteran
and a force to be reckoned with. Many of the fans on the back down the back straight away raising their vision to lose to Dale Earnhardt.
Dad was able to charge to the front and lead the final 29 laps.
And he's going to capture his first win of the season and the second of his cup career.
This 500 mile journey changed Dad's early morning demeanor once he pulls into Victory Lane.
He goes on to say,
This I could get used to. This beats the heck out of any other feeling I've had recently.
This is going to be Dad's first of nine total victories at Atlanta.
Now that's a record that still stands today for the most wins by a single driver at this track.
Now you'll remember back in 1979, Dad won his first cup race at Bristol in the Valley Dale Southeastern 500.
So fresh off this win at Atlanta, I'm sure he's pretty confident in defending his race win from the previous year.
Every time a driver wins their first race at a particular track, just seems like for whatever reason, every time they go back there, they always run good.
That would be the case for Dad and Bristol Motor Speedway.
As long as I can remember, I loved going to those races at Bristol, particularly the night race, so much cool energy at that one.
But I always knew that Dad was always going to be running for the win.
After a rough practice session though, Jake Elder jokes, we were running so bad I could have timed Dale with an alarm clock.
They had quite a bit of concern about Earnhardt here. He likes his Speedway. He feels more at home on it, I guess, than anywhere we go.
But despite these struggles, Dad's going to go out and qualify in fourth position.
The fourth starter is the Winston Cup point standing leader, Dale Earnhardt of Canapalus, North Carolina.
Kale Yarborough wins the pole, and he becomes the sentimental favorite for the race after he revealed that he spent the day with an 11-year-old, Brian Howell, who was suffering from throat cancer.
From Timminsville, South Carolina, three-time Winston Cup champ Kale Yarborough in the junior Johnson-prepared Bush Oldsmobile.
We talk about Dad being a strong contender at Bristol, but anybody who drove for junior Johnson at Bristol was always running for the win.
And as this race plays out, it looks like it's Kale's race to lose.
Kale Yarborough, he's led this race five times for 187 laps, and now he's slowing on the racetrack.
As he led most of the day, but then later he drops a cylinder.
If you blow the engine, it's all over with.
Kale's going to go on to say it was my race. It was no contest. That's two races in a row I've lost because something happened in my car.
If things turn around, the rest of them better look out.
Dad's going to get by and lead the final 135 laps to win for the second consecutive week.
He's going to finish 8.7 seconds ahead of second place Darrell Waltrip, and in victory lane, Dad was thrilled.
When I joined Australin, I really thought it would take a year to win my first race, but then we won this race last year, and we'll win our share this year.
I don't see any reason why I can't win the Grand National Championship this year. I just want to win, win, win.
A lot of predictions might joy that this youngster was headed for Stardom when he first came on the scene, and that's coming true more every race for him.
Well, he is certainly bold, Barney. He has the boldness of a Darrell Waltrip in the foot-to-the-floor driving style of Buddy Baker.
He has learned a lot in one short year on the Winston Cup Tour.
Here's Deb Williams on the importance of Dad winning back-to-back races.
I don't know if this guy might be here to stay would be the right terminology.
I think more of, well, this is interesting.
Well, was this a fluke?
What did he do to win this race?
And, you know, after back-to-back, then it was more of, oh, this is going to be an interesting season.
Are we seeing the starting of the changing of the guard?
You know, are we seeing someone else come in now who can truly challenge these people that are established the way the season progressed from that point caused everyone to raise a little bit of an eyebrow.
After winning their first Cup race together last year at Bristol, Jake Elder told the media that Dad had some bad habits.
And quote, he's got to learn to do as I say.
Well, after this year's win, Jake says his bad habits are gone.
He's taking my advice now and he's really listening.
These little nuggets from Jake will be important as this story unfolds.
And we kind of understand the type of driver that Jake Elder liked to work with and what he expected from Dad as the season wore on.
Not only would they leave Bristol with back-to-back wins, but now they also lead the Cut Point standings by 85 over Bobby Allison.
We'll be back with more Becoming Earn Heart presented by Bass Pro Shops in just a bit.
But before that, let's hear from my sister Kelly about Dad's closest friends and the relationships that meant the most to him.
You know, throughout the years of being around Dad, he had a lot of hunting buddies and hunting friends.
It kind of started early in South Carolina when he had some hunting land there with Richard Childress and Hank Jones.
I remember who owned Sports Image.
There was a couple guys from Atlanta Braves.
I know Jody Davis was a really good friend of my dad's.
He was a catcher for the Braves and they did a lot of hunting together.
And then when Johnny Morris came on and sponsored my dad's car and they developed that relationship, you know, there was a lot of hunting.
Mike Collier, my dad's pilot, did a lot of hunting with them.
Hank Parker Sr., Dad was good friends with Bill Jordan who owns Realtree.
So a lot of different people that came in and out of my dad's life from a hunting and outdoor perspective.
You know, my dad was just a really personable, kind of caring individual when it came to making other people feel valued and appreciated.
You know, he liked to pick around with people and he always said if he was picking on you, then he liked you.
Because sometimes, you know, people would get mad about that because he had this headlock that he would get you in or he would like grab you really hard on the neck.
I used to go to him with different stories like, dad, people call me a redneck at school and he's like, honey, if they're talking about you, then you got something good going on, you know.
So he always felt like if that was what was happening, then things are good.
And so I just think that, you know, he just made people feel comfortable and, you know, whether it was meeting a fan or a business partner or going hunting with a friend or whatever it was.
You know, he just made people feel comfortable and special and spending time with them.
So he just had a really easy, magnetic kind of personality.
We are all the time finding a bass pro.
There's a few that we go in regularly, but I like to kind of go in.
The first thing I do is like when I go in is I kind of stop and get a lay of the land because they're all kind of laid out a little bit different, you know,
and trying to figure out what in there are the things that you want to go look at just to look at and then what do you want to go do for shopping?
So I usually head to the home and the decor part.
Then I head over to the ladies section and look at the clothes.
And then I kind of go, I like going to the camping section and seeing what's about because we have a camper and, you know, I'm always interested in kind of the latest gadgets.
And then kind of the food and snacks.
They got some of the amazing candy options in there and all the kind of old timey candy that you can find in there and the licorice and the caramel creams and all those kinds of things.
And I like to check out the shoe section because you may not know it, but they have a lot of fashionable kind of shoes.
It's not all just for, you know, hunting or hiking or anything like that.
They've got a lot of cool shoes.
My husband heads straight to the hunting area and why it generally likes to find, the first thing he likes to find is if they have one of those shooting ranges,
because a lot of the stores have the little shooting ranges that you can do and you can knock the things down and all that, and then fishing.
It's kind of hard to figure out maybe what you do first because there's so much that you want to do.
I also admire Bass Pro's unwavering commitment to those who serve our country.
Their Legendary Salute program is one of the many ways they show support, offering a 10% everyday discount to active duty military, veterans and first responders.
It's their way of saying thank you to the heroes who protect our freedom and way of life.
To learn more and see full details, visit BassPro.com backslash Legendary Salute.
Let's step back for a second and try to see the full picture.
Dad just accomplished a really impressive feat winning back-to-back races in just his sophomore season.
So as a driver who has the hot hand naturally, you're anxious to keep rolling at the top.
But unfortunately for Dad, this next stretch of races would again be filled with attrition and disappointment.
From Darlington International Race Land, South Carolina, the Universal Racing Network brings you the CRC Chemicals Rebel 500.
At Darlington, a really tough, rugged racetrack. It kind of fits Dad's style. He's going to fall out with engine problems on lap 104.
His engine is gone, so they'll earn hard as proof of the day, and he led the race for a while. Right now the race leader, K.O. Yalbaron.
Now this is going to be Dad's third engine failure of the season, and we're only on race seven.
The perimeters of what you could do in the motor was also wide open as far as some of the rules go.
Again, Doug Richard.
So how far do you push making power, and you hope it lasts? You could build a grenade, but a grenade could blow.
A little bit of a history nugget for you. The race would be won by David Pearson in his first race with Haas Ellington in that famous red number one.
So back to back wins for David Pearson at Darlington in rides that he just hopped into.
It would be the Silver Fox's 105th and final cup victory in his incredible career. Some consider David Pearson to be the greatest driver ever in NASCAR.
As we pick up the season again at North Wilkes-Burl, Dad's quietly going to come home with a sixth place finish after starting fourth.
Dale Earnhardt is really getting a lot of acceleration off the corner, and I believe this is part of Jake Eller's plan on this car.
He's going to be five laps down to none other than the king, Richard Petty, who brought home his first win of the season.
Richard Petty still setting a blustering pace.
Richard Petty, a big smile on your face. The first victory in 1980.
Also after the North Wilkes-Burl race, LGD Witt announces that he's going to be shutting down his team due to the lack of a big buck sponsor, high cost and mediocre performance.
Now he emphasizes that the team closing down had nothing to do with the pending FBI investigation.
This is going to leave sophomore standout Joe Millican without a ride. This just paints the picture for you how competitive and unkind the cup garage could be at this point.
Joe Millican was viewed as Richard Petty's prodigy. For LGD Witt to suddenly shut the team down and Joe be out without a ride and really never had one again.
There was no stability in the teams like there is today, and I'm not talking about the charter system. I'm talking about benefits and salaries.
The only thing you got was what you won. It was a situation where if you were winning and performing, you probably were going to keep your ride, but if you're not producing, then you're out the door.
Joe Millican, who lost the rookie of the year to Dad last year, but actually out pointed him during the season, is out of a ride and on the outside looking in.
Joe's going to sit on the sideline for weeks until he finally teams up with Raymock for the final three races of this year.
Dad had a lot of security, I think, due to his wins, sponsorships, contracts, and after getting some momentum and leading the points, he may have been feeling a little pressure as the season rolls into Martinsville.
That pressure is what possibly fueled a very strange move Dad makes on the opening lap.
He's going to dive bomb into the first corner, passing an entire row of cars, driving over the curb, and into the left side of Richard Petty's Chevrolet, taking out several contenders.
Now this was basically the end of Dad's day. The damaged front suspension on the car would soldier home to a 13th place finish several laps down.
Now Richard Petty, he's going to rebound and have a spirited battle at the front of the field for the win between he and Daryl Walter, who came from several laps down.
Daryl got penalized due to a new tire changing mandate, which simply states that if a driver changed tires under the caution, they're going to be penalized two laps.
This is an effort to reduce tire usage and save the team's money. Probably a bad idea. But Daryl's going to go on and get the win at the end of this race and leads the series with three victories.
As legend has it after the race, King Richard is going to track down Dad and give him a stern talking to about his over-aggressive driving.
What happened when the race started, he just turned left, went up across the grass and jumped the curb and jumped right in the middle of that whole crowd. That was my introduction to Daryl. After that, he'd just take one at a time.
Now this race is on NASCAR classics and everyone should go watch it if you've got an opportunity. Fantastic stuff.
Now one of the things that's fascinating about this point in Dad's career is his lack of hesitation when it comes to going toe-to-toe with the Cup veterans.
So Dad may have three wins total in his career now, but the respect in the garage area is kind of wearing thin.
The veterans are fed up with his aggressive driving and carelessness.
And the tensions inside the Osterland team are kind of starting to crack with blown engines.
Short tempers and misfires in communication.
Now the question isn't just whether Dad can keep winning. It's whether this whole operation can hold together long enough to chase after this championship.
So Earnhardt is going to be called back to Pit Road. This could easily cost him a national driving title here this afternoon.
Becoming Earnhardt is a Dirty Mo Media original podcast series. It is written and produced by me, Dylan Hart Jr., with Bobby Marcos and Colby Bass.
Sound design by Alex Timms, Production Assistance, Tiff Powers, Mike Davis, Michael Caldwell, and Evan Vecchia.
This project is in partnership with MRN, the Motor Racing Network, and the Appalachian State University stock car collection.
Special thanks to SiriusXM, Silver Tribe Media, NASCARman, and Bob Ellis.
For additional Dirty Mo Media content, visit our YouTube page and follow us on all major social media platforms.
Request an explanation for:
2 cars
2 cars featured
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark.
Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
