![]() ![]() Once it was built and ready, the Nova occupied a spot on the shop floor at JR Motorsports, waiting for its chance to run again. The seat in it is an original seat of that era, not his (Dale Sr.’s) seat, but the same kind of seat he raced.” worked on the car himself, did a lot of the work. “It was just local help, just built it in the back yard,” Gee said. didn’t have it long before we got it.”īuilding the original was not the way cars are constructed today. “We couldn’t work on it all the time, it was a side project. “We worked on that car for almost two years,” he remembered. It took the better part of two years, off and on, he said. We took the whole rear clip off because it had been modified for a quick-change rear end. We cut everything that wasn’t original off, and made it all back to original. “We restored it from top to bottom,” Gee said. Once provenance was confirmed, the work of restoring it began. confirmed that the pop-rivet holes matched the box and were correct, while Gee verified the hand-made driveshaft hoop Dale Sr. ![]() Via an old photograph of him in the car as a youngster, Dale Jr. The younger Earnhardt remembered the hammered floor in the original car, as well as details about the peculiar way the radio box had been installed. That was after a long examination revealed it was indeed the same car his father had driven. ![]() arranged to purchase it and brought it home to Mooresville. After locating the original car at an auction, Dale Jr. and others built the car in the garage behind Martha Earnhardt’s house in Kannapolis. There wasn’t a lot of difference in those two cars, just the front end sheet metal, really it was just the hood and the grille.”ĭale Sr., Gee Jr. “It was built as a Pontiac Ventura, and the last two years he switched it over to the Nova. “It’s won at Daytona, probably at Rockingham, at Darlington and Charlotte,” Gee said. To his recollection, the car was a winner. That was just a speedway car, from Daytona down to Rockingham.” Then we changed over to a Monte Carlo Aero Coupe. He ran it off and on, six or eight times a year, from 1984 up until 1988 or 1989. He ran third in the race, the first race for that car. “We built it in 21 days and took it to Charlotte Motor Speedway and ran it in the spring race. had that chassis built at Hutcherson Pagan in the spring of 1984,” said Robert Gee Jr., Dale Sr.’s brother-in-law and Dale Jr.’s uncle. It was originally built as a Pontiac Ventura (there not being much difference between the Nova and the Ventura back then as both were GM models) and carried Wrangler blue and yellow, not the black, silver and red of Goodwrench it wears today. built in 1984 to run in what was then the Busch Grand National Series (today’s NASCAR Xfinity Series).and yet, it isn’t. 8 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Nova that Dale Earnhardt Sr. The car has a rich history, and the story of how it came to be on the track again 37 years after it was built is quite a tale as well, with as many moving parts as there are in the Chevrolet engine that powers it. It’s one any Earnhardt fan will recognize, as it was built and driven by his father. 8 GM Goodwrench Chevrolet at the head of the field for the initial pace laps. On Saturday, when the Steakhouse Elite 200 for NASCAR Xfinity Series machines gets under way, another icon that bears universal witness to NASCAR fans will appear once again on the egg-shaped 1.366-mile oval, driven by the son of the man who came to epitomize toughness in the driver’s seat at the place dubbed “Too Tough To Tame.”ĭale Earnhardt Jr. (May 7, 2021) – Darlington Raceway is NASCAR’s first superspeedway, torn out of the South Carolina countryside by Harold Brasington and forever etched into the collective soul of the sport. Racer Media & Marketing, Inc., 17030 Red Hill Avenue, Irvine, CA 92614,, N.C. Your use of this website constitutes acceptance of our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in any form without prior authorization. All contents copyright © 2023, Racer Media & Marketing, Inc. ![]()
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