"We didn't know how good we had it" - When Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s former employee looked back at DEI's golden era

Ty Norris, who was an executive at Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s team, Dale Earnhardt Incorporated, once spoke about the golden era of DEI. In 2021, Norris appeared on the Dale Jr. Download podcast and made candid remarks about the team surfing the wave of NASCAR's success in the '90s, while also touching on the way DEI didn't realize what they had going on.

The podcast co-host Mike Davis asked Norris about the "good times" of DEI and also about Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s vision for his team. He asked if Dale Sr's vision had a plan for the team's success beyond his "existence at it."

Norris responded that he worried what Dale Earnhardt Sr. would be like as an owner who was done with driving, considering he liked to be involved in everything. He then spoke about DEI's fast rise to the top of NASCAR, saying,

"As far as the best times, the sport was on this trajectory and we were right at the front of that wave and we were catching the Hendricks of the world and we were catching the big teams of the era[...] And we were right there with them, we were coming on their heels, and we were like, 'we are building something really special here.' The problem we had with it is we never realized it. We only realize it looking back is more so than when we were living it and that happens to a lot of things a lot of different times. But we didn't know how good we had it and then I don't think our best years were leading up to it" [42:00].

Norris drew an example from 1998 when DEI didn't have an engine until after the third round of qualifying at Daytona. He revealed the team managed an engine that couldn't "make 10 laps," and missed out on practice.

Following that, Ty Norris mentioned "the golden years" for DEI, 2001 to 2003. The current Kaulig Racing executive claimed they were "on a trajectory," bringing in a lot of sponsors. He pointed to DEI winning 8 of the 11 speedway races they ran, and starting to taste success at other tracks like Richmond and Phoenix in that era.

Norris worked with DEI between 1996 and 2004. He was the executive vice president of the team.

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Ty Norris claims too much success began to derail Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s team

Further talking about the success of Dale Earnhardt Sr.'s team, Ty Norris turned his focus to when things started to go off-track for DEI.

Norris said the people in the organization were "too high on our horse," began to consider their work "too easy," and saw themselves as "totally invincible" on and off the track.

"I mean we'd go do stuff off the track that we wouldn't be proud of today [...]and when then we go to the racetrack and race like hell and be competitive, win races, and we'd be like, 'Yep, we're the guys.' And it really, really, really fueled the egos across the board," . [44:48]

He added that the team's success began to get to people's heads "collectively," to the point where everyone was "smarter than everybody else." Norris said all of this ultimately created problems for DEI.