NASCAR Veteran Drops Bombshell Indispensable Life Lesson Behind Dale Jr.’s Rage-Fueled Memorabilia

During the 1980s, NASCAR witnessed one of its fiercest rivalries when Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine tussled with each other at the peak of their powers. At the 1987 All-Star race, Dale wrecked Geoff for the win, and just a week later at Charlotte, Bodine returned the favor and got slapped with a $15,000 fine! Tensions simmered until it all blew over after a meeting at Daytona following Earnhardt’s wrecking of Bodine at the 1988 Coca-Cola 600. However, all this time, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was watching from the sidelines, well aware of the beef that was brewing.

Years later, when Junior was a rookie in the Cup Series, he came up against Todd Bodine, Geoff’s brother. And after Todd wrecked him that year, Junior was furious and launched a funny yet nasty remark at Bodine, one that reflected the rivalry their families had. However, Bodine’s response was one of supreme maturity, one he dissected in an episode of the Dale Jr. Download with Junior himself.

How did Bodine react to Dale Jr. insulting him?

After Todd Bodine wrecked Jr., the young kid was naturally fuming. Dale Jr. spoke to swarming pit reporters after the wreck and let out a verbal jibe at Bodine. “I got out of the car and they interviewed me and I said ‘That cue-ball headed fool wrecked me’,” Junior recalled on the podcast. However, instead of feeling offended about his follicle impairment, Todd Bodine elected to get his own back by giving Dale Jr. a present.

Todd Bodine gifted Dale Earnhardt Jr. a signed cue ball, and the latter saw the funny side of it. As per Junior’s confession, that gift soon became one of his most prized possessions. “This is one of my favorite things in the room now,” Junior added. Of course, Dale Jr. just had to know how Todd Bodine took his angry comments back then. To his surprise, Bodine took the high road.

Bodine told Earnhardt Jr. on his podcast, “I laughed. Cause you’re right. You were young, I think it was your first year, right? Everything our families had gone through. One of my big lessons growing up was, I don’t hold grudges. Try not to think bad of people and talk bad of people. Especially in our sport and what we do, s—‘s going to happen, man. It’s just the nature of the game, and if you hold grudges against people, you’re going to have no friends. You’re going to have nothing.” But there was more to the story…

Bodine further recalled the shenanigans his team pulled the very next week after Earnhardt Jr.’s comment. Bodine added, “It was funny, I don’t know if you remember this. That next week I made some T-shirts. It was a rack of billiard balls, but we changed all the numbers on the balls to the race car numbers that we raced with. Yours was up front, and I was the cue ball, and it showed the balls all getting broken apart.” An absolute classic T-shirt. One that proved Bodine was more than happy to be the center of the joke, and that’s what made him such a loved personality.

If Bodine reacted harshly, it would have soiled the efforts that Sr. and Geoff had put into mending their relationship in 1988. Geoff Bodine always maintained that even though Earnhardt raced him hard, he never spoke ill of him to the media or cussed at him outside the racetrack. Their rivalry was purely based on winning races, and that’s how Todd kept it with Junior.

Junior added, “We never had no problems after that,” recalling the cue ball incident. A simple gesture, and a token to remember a race with. That’s what patched up things between Bodine and Junior. However, Bodine always wanted to have a special relationship with Dale Jr. Despite the rigid racing rivalry that the families had, the Bodines always left it at the racetrack.

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Todd Bodine on his feelings toward Dale Earnhardt Sr.

Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine’s rivalry was immensely popular. So much so that it even got a reference in the iconic ‘Days of Thunder’ movie! However, even Geoff Bodine wrote years later that he never had any ill feelings toward Earnhardt. In a journal entry in 2015, Geoff Bodine wrote, “When I saw his car in the rear view mirror, I just kept racing, but a lot of drivers would move over and let him go by. Well, with me being a hard-headed Yankee, I raced hard all my life, and I was never intimidated by anyone.” He didn’t have any personal grudge. They were just two drivers who wanted to win races, and that’s exactly how Todd Bodine saw it, too.

In the same episode, Junior mentioned how, “Around the mid-’80s or the late ’80s, dad and Geoff had a really rough couple of years. Earnhardts didn’t like the Bodines, and the Bodines probably didn’t love the Earnhardts.” So, Junior expected Todd to have some harsh feelings toward Dale for wrecking his brother, and the rivalry that ensued. However, Bodine was something else.

Bodine told Junior, “I’m different and I look at things way differently than most people. It was almost a sense of respect, maybe. The way they raced each other so hard. I never disliked [Dale] Sr. because he was wrecking Geoff [Bodine]. It was more like these two guys are hard a– racers. I think that’s why me and your dad always had a different relationship, because I never felt that way about him. Never held it against him.”

These words cut through the room. It was a sobering confession of how racing rivalries should be handled. Even Geoff Bodine admits, “He [Dale Sr.] was friends with all the drivers. He made friends with everyone. He would joke with you, come over and talk with you, squeeze you, but he didn’t care behind the wheel of the racecar. He’d knock you out of the way.” That’s The Intimidator for you. Fearless yet friendly.

The conversation between Junior and Bodine as a whole emphasizes the importance of not losing sight of what matters more. Friendships built on the track can last a lifetime, but grudges serve little to no purpose in the grand scheme of things. Both Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine left an indelible mark on the sport, and their families have done everything they can to keep their bond tight and build their legacies together.