"They were like Elvis Presley": Kenny Wallace remembers NASCAR's 'magical days' with Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Rusty Wallace

Dale Earnhardt Sr. is widely regarded as one of the best and most influential figures NASCAR has ever produced. This was something that former driver Kenny Wallace emphasized about the 7x Cup champion.

In a recently uploaded video, Kenny spoke about how he saw a dream involving Dale Earnhardt Sr. and his brother Rusty Wallace. It's worth mentioning that Earnhardt and Rusty shared a rivalry on the track in the 90s, during one of the brightest phases of NASCAR as a sport in terms of viewership and popularity.

Speaking about his dream, Kenny recalled him and his brother walking through a room and seeing two standups. One of those was of Dale Earnhardt Sr. and the other of Rusty Wallace.

But as soon as Kenny tried to have a conversation with Rusty, he woke up from his dream, which made him emotional and nostalgic for the good old days.

"Those days were so magical. I mean, it was Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt Sr. I'll never forget, Sr. was so damn popular, so famous. When we went to the Brickyard for the first couple of years, whenever Dale Sr. would leave his motorhome to head to the garage, he had to have two police escort him because the people were literally hanging on the fence and screaming. Those days were magical. It was so big. These guys, they were like Elvis Presley. I mean, they were superstars," Kenny Wallace described.

Dale Earnhardt Sr. never tasted success in one area of NASCAR during his lifetime

Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s greatness and his influence are widely accepted across the NASCAR community and among fans. He won seven Cup championships and 76 races in the sport's top flight.

As a result of his success and personality, Earnhardt was also responsible for boosting NASCAR's popularity. Over the course of his career, he was one-half of many iconic rivalries, which included some of the greats like Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon, and Rusty Wallace.

However, despite Earnhardt's success and the reverence fans and his peers had for him, he was never awarded NASCAR's most popular driver award in his lifetime. The Intimidator was posthumously given the award in 2001 after his tragic death resulting from a crash in the Daytona 500. During his lifetime, the award was mostly won by Bill Elliott, who won it 16 times between 1984 and 2002.

But while Earnhardt Sr. never won the most popular title in his lifetime, his son, Dale Earnhardt Jr. won several times. In fact, Junior won the Most Popular Driver award consecutively for 15 straight years, from 2003 until his retirement in 2017.