Earnhardt, Jr., Ralph Dale

The 2012 Bank of America 500 marked the first race since the 1979 Southern 500 that an Earnhardt had not competed in the Sprint Cup Series as Dale Earnhardt, Sr. had competed in every race from them until his death in the 2001 Daytona 500.

Earnhardt, Jr. owns Hammerhead Entertainment, a media production company that created and produces the TV show Back In the Day, which airs on SPEED. Hammerhead also produced "Shifting Gears", a show on ESPN2 that chronicled his 2008 team switch.

He is partners with a group of investors who are building Alabama Motorsports Park, A Dale Earnhardt Jr Speedway. The track is located near Mobile, Alabama and will feature stock car racing, KART racing and a road course. This will join with his partial ownership of Paducah International Raceway. Earnhardt has also opened a bar named Whisky River in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina in April 2008; he later opened a second Whisky River in Jacksonville, Florida Read Less

He also picked up his 2nd consecutive Most Popular Driver Award.

At the close of the 2004 season it was revealed that Tony Eury, Sr. would be promoted to the team manager position for the DEI corporation, while Tony Eury, Jr. became the crew chief for the DEI #15 driven by Michael Waltrip for the 2005 season. Read Less

After rain caused the race to be ended early, Dale Jr. finished 3rd with Kasey Kahne winning the race. Read Less

Following New Hampshire was the race at Pocono, where Junior was running in the middle of the pack when he crashed in turn 2. These two events catapulted him to 11th in the points standing, out of the Chase for the Cup. At Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Dale Jr. and his crew made a critical decision to stay out on the final pit stop to get a much needed top-ten finish to move him up to tenth in the points. Read Less

His points position going into the Chase was 6th. He finished the season 5th in the point standings, 147 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. Read Less

Team owner Rick Hendrick was also docked 50 owner points along with Jr.

Dale Jr. started 15th for the Auto Club 500 because qualifying was rained out and the lineup was determined by owner points from last season. However on lap 21, teammate Casey Mears went up into the wall due to water on the track. When he came back down the track he took out Jr. When the cameras caught up with him in the garage, he was irritated about the fact that they were even out on the track in those conditions. It had been raining all weekend and water was "weeping" out of the cracks on the track causing slick spots in the corners. The race was later rain delayed until Monday and Dale Jr. finished the race 40th.

A string of four top-5 and top-10 finishes over the following weeks improved his position in the points standings from 23rd to fourth. Despite winning the pole for the Samsung 500 at Texas, Dale Jr. finished the race a lap down in 12th position. He made his 300th career Sprint Cup start at the Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway. Despite running a strong race (including leading 12 times), his involvement in a late-race collision left him with a 10th place finish in the race. A string of three top-5 finishes in the next four races continued Earnhardt Jr.'s consistency, and maintained his 3rd place position in the points standings. Read Less

In the season-opening Daytona 500, Earnhardt, Jr. began well, even leading for a lap. However multiple misfortunes, including a missed pit stop and a 1-lap penalty for pitting outside of his pit box, sent him far into the back of the running order. Earnhardt, Jr. was then directly involved in a controversial crash on lap 124, when, while fighting to return to the lead lap, he came in contact with Brian Vickers while fighting to be the first driver one lap down (who gets a free pass should the caution flag come out), causing a ten car pileup which included Denny Hamlin, Scott Speed, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Kurt Busch, Robby Gordon, Jamie McMurray, and Carl Edwards. Vickers and Kyle Busch later criticized Earnhardt who denied purposely clipping Vickers. Earnhardt, Jr. criticized Vickers for blocking him on the inside. When the race concluded early due to the rain, Earnhardt ended with a 27th place finish. After a blown engine at California and falling to 35th in the owners points, he finished 10th at Las Vegas and reached 29th place in points. He finished 8th at Martinsville. He had a string of poor finishes including 20th at Texas, and 31st at Phoenix after being spun out by Casey Mears. He gained confidence in his team with a very strong performance at Talladega, leading for 20 laps, and finishing second to his protege Brad Keselowski after Keselowski sent Carl Edwards flying into the catch fence in one of the year's biggest upsets. Read Less

He walked away from the wreck uninjured. His driver Danica Patrick was caught up in another wreck before Earnhardt flipped. With 2 laps to go in the Daytona 500 the following day, he went from 10th to 2nd in one lap but couldn't pass Jamie McMurray and finished in second place. He was unable to follow up on this strong performance the following week in California when a broken axle left him with a 32nd-place finish, 12 laps down. The next weekend in Las Vegas he qualified 4th for the Shelby American, however after falling a lap down late in the race he could only settle for a 16th place finish. Following another poor finish at Atlanta settling for a 15th place finish. The next weekend at Bristol, Dale Jr. started 18th. He slowly made his way up the pace to 5th. Then a speeding penalty on pit road sent him to the tail end of the longest line. He charged his way up the pack to settle for a 7th place finish. He later qualified 8th at Martinsville after qualifying was rained out. After facing some handling problems, he ended up with a 15th place finish. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. qualified 5th for the Subway Fresh Fit 600. Early in the race, Dale Jr. had a splitter brace issue, that sent him to mid-pack. He later finished 12th. After qualifying 9th in the Samsung Mobile 500, Dale Jr. had a strong car for most of the race, and led 46 laps. Read Less

Two days later, on March 7, he ended with a 15th place finish after tire issues and other mishaps. Read Less

The next day on July 3 in the Coke Zero 400 Dale Jr. finished in 4th place, improving his position in the point standings from 13th to 11th. Then at the night race at Chicagoland Speedway he finished 23rd with dropped him back in to 13th place in points, dropping him 15 points out of the top 12. Read Less