3: The Dale Earnhardt Story

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3: The Dale Earnhardt Story
3: The Dale Earnhardt Story movie poster
Directed by	Russell Mulcahy
Produced by	Orly Adelson Lynn Raynor
Written by	Robert Eisele
Starring	Barry Pepper
Music by	Louis Febre
Studio	ESPN Films
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)	December 11, 2004
Running time	90 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

3: The Dale Earnhardt Story (sometimes referred to as The Dale Earnhardt Movie) is a 2004 television movie produced by ESPN documenting the life of NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt, his poor upbringing in Kannapolis, North Carolina, his rise to dominance in NASCAR, his relationship with his son, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and his death in the 2001 Daytona 500. It was first broadcast on December 11, 2004, and was subsequently released on DVD. Barry Pepper stars as Dale Earnhardt.

Many race scenes were shot at Rockingham Speedway, after the track had lost its races and was used mostly as a test track and driving school. Chad McCumbee, who portrayed Junior, later became a NASCAR driver in the Truck Series. He also raced alongside Dale Jr. himself at the Pocono 500, driving Kyle Petty's 45 car, as Kyle Petty was in the TNT broadcast booth.

Actors playing the part of Earnhardt's famous Goodwrench #3 pit crew were Ray Everett, Greg Davis, David Brooks, Robbie Hicks and Don Gyr.

Copyright infringement controversy

The script of this film was not approved by Teresa Earnhardt and the Earnhardt family. The film, although capturing the essence of Dale Earnhardt, is inaccurate in many of the events seen in the film. Richard Childress, the former car owner and team owner of Dale Earnhardt sued ESPN for copyright infringement with the film's use of the "3" logo.

Historical inaccuracies

The relationship between Darrell Waltrip and Dale in the film focuses primarily on their fierce rivalry, with little attention given to the friendship that would develop between the two. Waltrip noted this on his website during the runup to the film. Waltrip eventually drove for Earnhardt's race team in 1998. Also, it is Waltrip's tear-filled voice that can be heard saying "I just hope Dale's okay." during the film's depiction of Earnhardt's fatal crash at Daytona due to the use Fox Network's original footage and commentary, which is now owned by NASCAR Images (starting in 2001, NASCAR Images owns all NASCAR race footage; they also own the footage of the former Sunbelt Video).

Several cars shown in the movie were historically inaccurate. In the moments before the 2001 Daytona 500, the cars of Bobby Labonte, Rusty Wallace, Bill Elliott, Jeff Gordon, and Rick Mast, with Gordon's easily visible, as the 2001 season was the year the "Rainbow Warrior" livery was replaced with the "Fire and Flames" livery. Also notable was a wrong-year scene featuring Morgan-McClure Motorsports, where a late 1990s Kodak Max film livery was used instead of the Kodak Gold film livery. (The design was based on a box of Kodak film.) Also, the movie car was a Pontiac. The real car MMM fielded at the time was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Morgan-McClure Motorsports did, however, field a Pontiac Grand Prix in the 2003 season. Another inaccuracy is the depiction of Rusty Wallace's car as a Dodge Intrepid in the 43rd Great American Race, Penske Racing did not switch to Dodge until 2003, and therefore Wallace was piloting a Ford Taurus when the green flag dropped at DIS.

In two different scenes in the film, the infield of various tracks were shown with flags of drivers who were not driving at that time were shown, such as Tony Stewart's flag at the Darlington race in 1990, where Neil Bonnett suffered a violent crash, along with several other cars involved.

The February 23, 1986 incident at Richmond International Raceway was inaccurately depicted, where Earnhardt spun out Darrell Waltrip with three laps to go. In the film, Earnhardt's now-famous line "I didn't mean to wreck him, I just wanted to rattle his cage a little" was part of the post-race interview. That line, however, was not said at that time. Instead it was said at Bristol on August 28, 1999 after Earnhardt spun out Terry Labonte on the final lap to win the race.

In Earnhardt's first Daytona 500 start, the movie shows him driving a Chevrolet Monte Carlo. However, he actually drove a Buick. Also mentioned in the scene that Earnhardt finished 4th in the race, Earnhardt finished 8th in his first Daytona 500 start and thus it is also inaccurate. He finished 4th prior to that once in 1978 at Dover and would not score another top 5 until North Wilkesboro that same year of his first 500 start.

During the scene of him being at a gas station, soon after the short montage of Earnhardt winning the 1980 title, it showed John Anderson flipping over during the 1981 qualifying races at Daytona. A race that Earnhardt finished 4th at.

The film made no mention of his two-year stint with car owner Bud Moore from 1982 to 1983. In fact, for many years, Nationwide Series cars by Hendrick Motorsports used #15 because Earnhardt drove a Hendrick-Gee car to a Busch Series win at Charlotte in 1983. From 2001 until 2007, a DEI car used #15 in honour of Moore.

Dale actually first met Teresa when she was about 16, and he knew she was Hal Houston's daughter (also the uncle of former driver Tommy Houston). Their meeting is inaccurately portrayed in the film.

In the scenes of the 2001 Daytona 500, Dale is seen wearing a helmet with Corvette Racing decals, rather than his GM Goodwrench decaled helmet. (The Corvette Racing helmet was used in the Rolex 24 at Daytona that he raced along with his son, two weeks prior to that.)

In the 2001 Daytona 500 scene, Dale is seen wearing tinted racing goggles. Dale actually wore his clear racing goggles in his final race.

None of Earnhardt's crew chiefs were accurately mentioned. Earnhardt won his first championship with Doug Richert, then won his next four with Kirk Shelmerdine, and his final two with Andy Petree (now at ESPN) at the top of the pit box. He won his only Daytona 500 with Larry McReynolds (currently with Fox Sports). None were portrayed in the movie accurately.

Dale Earnhardt did give a gun to Neil Bonnett as a gift and their friendship is accurate.

When Dale wins the 1998 Daytona 500, during the line of pit crew members congratulating Dale, it was very noticeable that the Winston logo (the series sponosor from 1971–2003) covered the NEXTEL letters on the banner, NEXTEL became the series sponsor starting in 2004 before renaming to Sprint. Also in that scene, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is shown hugging his father in victory lane. Dale Jr. was not at the race; he had returned home following the Busch Series (now known as the Nationwide Series) race in which he was involved in a late race crash that resulted him to go airborne.

ESPN Original Entertainment executive producer Will Steger was quoted in the Dick Berggren's Speedway Illustrated magazine (December 2004) saying the film was an,"unauthorized docudrama...inspired by the true life of Dale Earnhardt." The story, written by Leo Dougherty, noted that Andy Hillenburg, the current owner of Rockingham Speedway, went across the country from Massachusetts to Florida to California collecting race cars for the film. Hillenburg provided 62 cars that were built into race cars and painted to reflect cars of certain eras in the film. Hillenburg owned the Bobby Allison car that was in the film. The car was in the Talladega museum and was the car Allison won the Daytona 500 with the year he beat his son, Davey, to the finish line. Ron Bouchard also loaned his 1981 Talladega-winning car to the film. Hillenburg is quoted in the article saying, "...those are the only cars that appear as they really are."

Anachronisms

During one of the scenes taking place in the 1970s, Earnhardt is shown placing a money clip on the table holding what is clearly a new-style $20 bill.

Realtree was shown as a sponsor during a dirt track race in the 1950s early in the film, but it was not founded until the 1980s.

Sunoco Gasoline is shown on the fuel tankers in the movie, but Union 76 fuel was used in the era. (Sunoco did not sign with NASCAR until the start of the 2004 season. However, it should be noted many short tracks use CAM2 (now Sunoco) Racing Gasoline, even in the 1970s.)

External links

• ESPN: 3
• 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story at the Internet Movie Database