Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s guest recalls when the Intimidator took Alan Kulwicki on an interesting lunch

Despite the fact that Dale Earnhardt is usually considered intimidating, he often used to be lighthearted with his fellow drivers off the track - including a few pranks here and there. Recently, on his son Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s podcast "The Dale Jr. Download", former crew chief Gary Nelson shared such a story where Dale Sr. pranked the late Alan Kulwicki.

Dale Sr. competed in the NASCAR Cup Series for over 27 years, mostly with Richard Childress Racing. Out of his 676 Cup starts, he won 76 races and finished in the top 10 in 428. However, in an unfortunate accident, Earnhardt Sr. lost his life during the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 18, 2001.

On the final lap, Dale Sr. was involved in a three-car incident, making slight contact with Sterling Marlin before colliding with Ken Schrader and striking the outside wall head-on.

Alan Kulwicki, meanwhile, competed in the Cup Series for nine years, making 207 starts, winning 5 races and finishing in the top 10 in 75 of them. Known for racing for his own underfunded team, AK Racing, Kulwicki died in an airplane crash on April 1, 1993. The National Transportation Safety Board later determined that the crash resulted from the pilot's failure to activate the airplane's anti-ice system, which would have cleared ice from the engine inlet system.

Despite their competitive nature on the track, Alan Kulwicki and Dale Earnhardt Sr. shared a good relationship as friends when not racing. On a recent episode of Earnhardt Jr.'s podcast, guest Gary Nelson shared an incident involving the host's father and Kulwicki. He recalled that while they were all at Rockingham for a test session, Kulwicki, still in his firesuit and sponsored by Quincy Steakhouse at the time, was invited to lunch by Earnhardt.

In a lighthearted prank, Earnhardt took Gary Nelson and Alan Kulwicki out to Quincy Steakhouse for lunch.

"Alan had to sit there through the lunch, we're in a driver's seat with all of the customers. Like you watch on a television commercial, the race driver is always wearing the driver's seat out in the commercial," Gary Nelson added.

Similarly, Dale Earnhardt Sr. is also remembered for pulling some of his best practical jokes on Rusty Wallace.

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Dale Earnhardt put fish under the seat of Rusty Wallace's car

In 2023, on one of the early episodes of "The Dale Jr. Download", Earnhardt Jr. recounted a prank played by his father on Rusty Wallace. When Wallace later appeared on the podcast, he vividly remembered the incident:

"I’ll never forget when I get in the damn car at Darlington. And I get in my car and it stinks so bad I can’t see straight. And I get in and I sit down and I feel like I’m sitting in this big ole’ mush. And I get out and I pick the seat cover up and it’s full of sardines."

Wallace further revealed,

"I back out and I turn and it’s not him standing by himself. There was like eight of ’em behind him. They’re like a football team backing him up, ‘Look what we just did.'"

Rusty Wallace wasn't one to let things slide, though. The very next weekend, he got his payback by swiping Dale Earnhardt's steering wheel right before the race at Bristol Motor Speedway.