NASCAR Hall of Fame: Richard Childress to Induct Dale Earnhardt

Richard Petty and Junior Johnson have known since October that they would be inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame on May 23.

In 1984, team owner Richard Childress felt he was ready to build consistently impressive cars for Dale Earnhardt, and they became partners for a second time. The result was one of the best alliances ever at NASCAR’s top level.

Earnhardt and Childress won their first championship together in 1986, and Earnhardt won $1 million in a season for the first time.

Another championship followed in 1987 and a fourth in 1990. Earnhardt also won the Cup title in 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994.

Earnhardt became known as the Intimidator, a nickname that sold truckloads of T-shirts.

Although few of his contemporaries admitted to buying into the Intimidator persona–and none would admit being intimidated by him, Earnhardt often validated the thinking that he would do anything to win. He smashed Terry Labonte on the last lap to win a race at Bristol.

He engaged Geoffrey Bodine in a classic series of “Southern boy versus Yankee” duels. He sent Rusty Wallace into a spectacular flipping crash at Talladega. He tangled with Georgia golden boy and fellow fan favorite Bill Elliott on the high ground of The Winston All-Star Race.

“He was good, but he had a lot of people who would just pull over and let him by because he had hit so many of them,” said retired driver David Pearson, who raced with and for Earnhardt. “He liked to have killed Rusty Wallace four or five times. When it came down to it, he was going to hit you or knock you out of the way and say he didn’t mean to or something like that. A lot of times, he’d spin people out when he didn’t have to.

“I borrowed some rims from him one time. He said, ‘You better put them on pretty good because I’m going to knock them off.’ He knew who he could run over.”

In an odd twist of history, the driver who finished 23rd in the 1975 World 600, one position behind Earnhardt in Earnhardt’s Cup debut, was Childress. A few years later, they would join forces to form one of the most potent teams in NASCAR history.

“To be part of Dale’s career and to watch the things he accomplished and the things he did to help carry our sport to another level, I think the Hall of Fame is well-deserved,” Childress said. “I’m just honored to have worked with him all those years.”

NASCAR is still in the process of putting together the induction ceremony, which is scheduled for 1 p.m. May 23 in the ballroom adjacent to the Hall of Fame.

The facility officially opened to the public Tuesday.

“Me and Junior were just talking about it,” Petty, a seven-time Cup champion, said while attending the opening ceremonies. “I said, ‘You write me one, I’ll write you one.’”