There’s never been another Dale Earnhardt, and there never will be

Just 10 seconds into NASCAR’s 2026 Super Bowl ad touting the sport’s new slogan — “Hell Yeah” — there’s a telling detail on a license plate: The “e” in “Hell” is a 3. And in case you missed that, there’s a fan wearing a 3 jacket, and a Craftsman truck decked out in a familiar black paint scheme doing a dramatic slow-mo burnout. The message is unmistakable: No more screwing around. NASCAR’s bringing back that Dale Earnhardt attitude.

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Twenty-five years after his sudden, shocking death on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt remains as vital to NASCAR as ever. A quarter-century after we last saw his Goodwrench No. 3 knifing through the pack, Dale Earnhardt is still exactly what NASCAR wants to be.

Sure, the tattoos Earnhardt fans got during his lifetime are fading and sagging. The last Cup driver to run in a race with Earnhardt, Ryan Newman, retired more than two years ago. But you don’t have to look far to see Earnhardt’s persistent influence. He’s the focus of new documentaries, books, endless social media recollections. His image — sunglasses, mustache, attitude, black No. 3 flag — is still everywhere at NASCAR tracks.

No other driver — not Jeff Gordon, not Chase Elliott, not even Earnhardt’s boy — has ever come close to matching The Intimidator’s impact. And given the way that NASCAR, and American culture, have trended in the years since his death, it’s likely no one ever will.

If Dale Earnhardt hadn’t existed, a team of marketers — or a superhero movie screenwriter — couldn’t have created a more perfect avatar of NASCAR’s ideal self-image. Born in the blue-collar mill town of Kannapolis, North Carolina, he lived hard and raced harder. Some people climb over obstacles; Earnhardt just drove right through them.

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He was mean as hell; you don’t get the name “The Intimidator” because you’re a go-along, get-along kind of guy. But he also inspired deep respect up and down the garage. You might not like him, you definitely wouldn’t outrun him, but you damn sure respected him. Drivers from Jeff Gordon to Jimmie Johnson to Kurt Busch have spent the last 25 years telling stories of how nervous they were in Earnhardt’s presence, and these are NASCAR’s champions.

But Earnhardt wasn’t just a surly S.O.B. Besides being tougher than a three-dollar steak, Earnhardt was also funny as hell. His disgust at drivers who complained about going too fast at Talladega created one of racing’s all-time great quotes: “Put a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won’t climb up and eat that candy ass.” It’s tough to say which was scarier — Earnhardt in your rear-view mirror charging at you, or Earnhardt in his sunglasses smiling at you.

Sure, he wasn’t perfect. He played by the rules right up until the rules didn’t suit him. If he needed to turn someone to win a race, like Terry Labonte in Bristol, well, he’d rattle their cage and plead innocence later. He could be a tough man to love, whether you were his wife or his friend or his child. And he was beyond stubborn; it’s tough to reconcile the fact that he refused to wear the neck-protecting HANS device that could have saved him from the exact spinal injury that killed him.

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In the years since Earnhardt died, American culture has swung away from the worship of the car, and of Earnhardt’s brand of tough, unapologetic masculinity. Maybe he would have changed with the times, or maybe he would have stubbornly remained set in his ways. Or maybe both. He was complex and unpredictable, and he swerved away from expectations just like he swerved around slower-moving cars.

Earnhardt swung conservative in his political beliefs, but famously once cut the Confederate flag off his truck’s bumper sticker after he understood the offense it caused. He was as wealthy as a king, but he loved driving his tractor on his farm — sometimes even riding up to unsuspecting onlookers trying to catch a glimpse of his estate. He stoked a public rivalry with Gordon, but privately went into business with him, monetizing their personality clashes.

But he didn’t whine. He didn’t play victim. He just strapped himself into his Goodwrench No. 3 and figured out how to beat you, one way or another.

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Even now, Earnhardt’s influence persists far beyond the grandstands of NASCAR tracks. Anyone who’s ever felt the hum of an engine in their bones, or mashed the gas on an open highway, discovers that bit of Earnhardt in their soul. Maybe that’s why his absence still hurts, and always will.

Raise hell. Praise Dale. Now and forever.