Without a doubt, the most tragic incident in the history of NASCAR was when we lost Dale Earnhardt at Daytona 500 in 2001. Over the years, Childress, who was Earnhardt’s team owner and his long-time friend, has expressed how he considered leaving NASCAR altogether after Earnhardt’s tragic demise.
In a recent interview on Fast Cars 2 NASCAR with Mike Wallace, Childress opened up on what went through his mind after Earnhardt’s passing, the decision he was about to make, what changed that, and the decision he actually made.
“That night after that, I went back and talked to my wife and I said, ‘You know, we’re gonna sell this thing as soon as I get back home. I’m gonna get out of it, I’m out of racing.’ Lost my best friend, Dale was our franchise for RCR. It was a tough deal, it still bothers me today even thinking about it.”
“I thought about this big hunting, we called it Big Horse Wreck, but we got thinking about the Great Horse Wreck and Dale, I fell off the mountain… I said to Dale, ‘You know if I hadn’t made it off this mountain today, you’d have to went and race on from next weekend’. He said, ‘If it ever happens to me,’ he said, ‘You gotta go and race.'”