Dale Earnhardt Jr. is old school, no question about it.
So when Ray Evernham began to assemble vehicles for his second annual Americarna Live car show in Davidson, N.C., last week, NASCAR's most popular driver was happy to serve up one of his rides.
What Junior brought wasn't a new Corvette or even a vintage, tire-melting big-block Camaro. Nope, it was a humble 1988 Chevrolet S-10.
Why an S-10? When he was 16 years old, Earnhardt's first personal vehicle was an '88 S-10.
Later, Earnhardt had a 1991 S-10 extended cab. Until, that is, he rolled it on Christmas morning on the way to his grandmother's house.
Earlier this year, NASCAR's most popular driver recounted the story of the crash of his '91 S-10.
"I financed it for five years for a $100 payment," Earnhardt said. "I had it for about three months, and I flipped it on Christmas morning driving to MeMaw's for a family reunion. There was a little snow off the road, but not on the road. But I'd gotten a Walkman CD player from my sister with a tape adaptor, and I was messing with that, and drove it off the road, and hit a driveway culvert, and flipped over like six or seven times. It totaled the truck.
"Some people drove by, helped me out. I called Dad on their cell phone. He was at MeMaw's. I said 'I flipped my truck and I need you to come get me.' I wasn't but about four miles from the farm on Highway 3 so he drove to the farm, got the rollback, and when he got there, the state patrolman got there as well. Me and Dad loaded the truck up, and the patrolman said, 'If y'all are good, I'm good.' So we just took the truck home. And that was that. I got some pretty good insurance (payment) on it, and got myself another truck. I don't think anything survived the wreck. Luckily I didn't get hurt; it was a pretty nasty spill."
As if that wasn't enough, Earnhardt's sister, Kelley Earnhardt Miller, brought a pretty nifty ride to Evernham's show herself, a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle that was a birthday present from her husband, LW Miller.
