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ALL STAR: Family Affair For Earnhardt Jr.
Written by: Tom Jensen   
04/30/2009
Charlotte, NC
 
Dale Earnhardt Jr. in victory lane after winning the 2000 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race. (PHOTO: LAT Photographic) ยป More Photos

The running of the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race in 2000 saw history made at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, as rookie Dale Earnhardt Jr. captured the All-Star title in his first attempt. In the process, he became both the first rookie to win the event and half of the only father-son tandem to win the race.

That he made it in at all was a bit of a longshot. After all, Earnhardt Jr. was in his first Cup season with Dale Earnhardt Inc., the team his father had started. And he had become eligible for the big race just a month earlier with a surprise victory at Texas Motor Speedway.

“We didn't even think we were going to be in that race. We had just won at Texas a couple weeks earlier," said Earnhardt Jr. “I remember in victory lane in Texas looking at Tony Jr. (Eury, Earnhardt’s cousin and crew chief). We just got hit with the wave of excitement from winning our first race, and I looked at him and said, ‘You know we're in the All-Star race now. I hope you got a good enough car for that; because that's a big
deal. That's 20 cars and we don't want to run around the back of that race.’ We were a rookie team and we didn't have but maybe six or seven cars built. But we brought a good one.”

ALL STAR GALLERY WITH LEGACY PICS

On the strength of his Texas victory, Lowe’s Motor Speedway President and General Manager H.A. “Humpy” Wheeler picked the younger Earnhardt to win the race, which drew the ire of Earnhardt Sr., who was mad at Wheeler for putting extra pressure on his son.

Early on, things didn’t look good for the younger Earnhardt after contact with the LMS walls left a big streak of red paint. “I was running as hard as I could to run third in the first segment and we hit the wall,” Earnhardt Jr. “The car slowed down about a half-tenth (per lap) and I was a little nervous that we had hurt the car a little bit.”

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