Dale Earnhardt Jr. vividly remembers the explosive rivalry between his father, Dale Earnhardt, and Geoff Bodine, a saga that dominated NASCAR’s headlines through the 1980s and 1990s. During a recent episode of his podcast, Dale Earnhardt Jr. once again pulled back the curtain on a battle filled with “true hatred,” recounting how teams, fans, and even families were swept up in the bitter competition that played out on the track, often with dramatic and costly consequences.
For countless racing fans, the feud between Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine represents one of the most emotionally charged chapters in NASCAR history. Dale Earnhardt Jr., whose own racing career was shaped by witnessing these clashes up close, makes no secret of the impact this rivalry had. Speaking with genuine intensity, he described the relentless tension and animosity that infected everything from the grandstands to the pit wall.
“Dad and Geoff Bodine, to me, has to be like on the Mount Rushmore of rivalries in NASCAR,”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. stated on The Dale Jr. Download.
“There was a true hatred across both sides, (there was) sparring in the media, going back and forth (and) the teams did not like each other.”
The roots of this rivalry stretch back to the late 1970s, when both drivers entered the Winston Cup Series in 1979, their fierce desire to win quickly morphing into personal animosity. On the racetrack, their clashes became legendary, at times even overshadowing the actual outcome of the races themselves. Dale Earnhardt Jr. admits that his father’s focus would shift away from victory and toward settling scores, no matter the cost.
“Dad would lose his mind. He’d go out on the track and no longer was he worrying or thinking about the checkered flag or winning the race, it was ‘I’m going to wreck Geoff Bodine as fast and as quickly as I possibly can,’ knowing that it was going to result in five-lap penalties or they invented a penalty box during the middle of that rivalry and they put Dad in it. Yeah, he dared them.”
Inside the team, this cutthroat attitude was not only tolerated but sometimes encouraged, as recalled by Kirk Shelmerdine—Earnhardt Sr.’s longtime crew chief—and team owner Richard Childress. Even when Dale Earnhardt Sr. would essentially throw his own race to teach Bodine an on-track lesson, his crew had his back.
“They were like, ‘Yeah, man, everybody in the moment was like, what needed to happen happened,’”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. said, echoing both pride and frustration in his tone.
The rivalry’s bitterness extended beyond just Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine themselves. In conversations with Todd Bodine, Geoff’s younger brother, Dale Earnhardt Jr. reflected on these years as a chaotic time for both families.
“In around the mid-80s or the late-80s, Dad and Geoff had a really rough couple of years,”
Earnhardt Jr. recalled. He went on to explain that even family members watching from the suites felt the pain of these on-track vendettas.
“There were times when if Dad could spin him out and get away with it, I was okay with it. (But) there were times when he would get himself five-lap penalties and I’m thinking, ‘What are you doing? Why are y’all so mad at each other that you’re going to throw the whole race away?’”
This relentless rivalry sometimes exploded in ways that defied all logic and reason. Dale Earnhardt Jr. described one notorious Busch Series event where his father intentionally spun out Geoff Bodine, destroying his own chances and even wrecking a car with deep family meaning. The very next day during the Cup race, history repeated itself, and another deliberate wreck left Earnhardt’s whole family, gathered in a crowded suite, exasperated and confused as the No. 3 car was penalized five laps—just for the sake of a grudge.
“They go into the Cup race the next day, running seventh or something like that, not even racing for the lead, and Dad ends up wrecking Geoff in (turns) three and four and gets a five-lap penalty,”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. continued, the disbelief still resonant in his voice.
“(His) whole family’s up in this suite, there’s like 30 of us up here to watch you race, and you and him are out there (messing) around and now we’re five laps down with 500 miles to go, like what are we doing? But they were just so hard-headed.”
For Todd Bodine, though, the story had a different shade. While his brother Geoff and Dale Earnhardt clashed bitterly, Todd shared a friendlier, sometimes even humorous rapport with “The Intimidator.”
“I’m different and I look at things way differently than most people,”
Todd Bodine noted. He described a relationship where aggressive racing was almost a form of mutual respect between true competitors.
“I never disliked Senior because he was wrecking Geoff, it was more like these two guys are hard-ass racers and they’re racing hard kind of a thing. I think that’s why me and (Earnhardt Sr.) always had a different relationship because I never felt that way about him, never held it against him.”
Anecdotes from Todd Bodine’s life further highlight the peculiar dynamic between the families. He recalled how Dale Earnhardt would ride horses with his daughter Taylor through the woods to Todd’s nearby farm, only to criticize the lack of a hitching post.
“They did it four or five times one summer. … So, they would ride over and every time (Dale Sr.) would bust my ass because I had no hitching post for (the horses). He’s like, ‘You know I’m coming over here, damn it, give me a hitching post up here,’”
Todd recounted to Dale Earnhardt Jr. Smiling at the memory, he added,
“So that winter I ended up putting up a hitching post and he never got to use it. But if people knew the relationship we had, they’d be like ‘Why? (There was) you and him and your brother?’ It was different but it was cool, it was different.”
While the on-track rivalry was vicious, there were moments of genuine connection and even odd forms of camaraderie, making the feud ever more perplexing. Yet for those outside the two camps, it didn’t matter: the feud was the headline, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. grew up acutely aware of its lasting impact, both emotionally and competitively.
Over the years, the drama between Dale Earnhardt and Geoff Bodine spilled into pop culture. The dynamic inspired the Tom Cruise film “Days of Thunder,” with its depiction of two hot-headed racers escalating personal battles into on-track chaos. In real life, the animosity between Earnhardt and Bodine was every bit as real—if not more so. As Dale Earnhardt Jr. explained, the intensity never let up, fueled by pride, stubbornness, and the sheer will to win.
In an opinion piece published a decade ago, Geoff Bodine provided his own account of the rivalry, one that underscores the depth and complexity involved.
“We were friends off the racetrack,”
Bodine wrote, highlighting how their families, including kids and spouses, once socialized together.
“My kids and their mother went down to Dale’s lake house and played with Kelly and Dale Jr. They rode go-karts,”
Bodine recalled. But as the rivalry heated up—especially after Bodine moved to Hendrick Motorsports and started winning—old friendships faded and the competitive edge grew razor-sharp.
Moments once filled with joy and laughter soon gave way to suspicion and mistrust.
“After I made the move to Hendrick Motorsports and started to win races, we weren’t getting invites to dinner anymore, or the kids didn’t play with each other like they used to,”
Bodine explained. The growing rift didn’t only exist on the racetrack; it seeped into private moments, as family interactions dwindled and friendly traditions ended.
The racing itself became a battlefield where neither side would back down, regardless of the consequences.
“As his nickname stuck with fans as ‘The Intimidator,’ I called him ‘The Eliminator’ because he’d come behind you and towards the end of the race, he’d run into you and eliminate you,”
Bodine wrote with a hint of wry admiration. Fan adulation only energized the rivalry further.
“The race fans loved it; he had, and still has, a tremendous fan base. NASCAR and track promoters alike loved Earnhardt’s racing style because it helped with filling seats in the grandstands and helped with TV.”
This high-octane drama reached its peak during the mid-1980s and early 1990s, energizing NASCAR crowds but also wearing down the competitors. Bodine recounted one such explosive confrontation, echoing the legendary meeting in “Days of Thunder” where, after a particularly brutal weekend at Charlotte, both drivers were summoned by Bill France Jr., NASCAR’s boss, for a private meeting. These were not movie scripts—they were real moments, driven by rivalry and stubbornness.
Even in moments of triumph, the divide was unmistakable.
“He never came to Victory Lane when I won, nor did I when he won, but that was okay. He was a competitor; he didn’t like to lose and I didn’t like to, either,”
Bodine reflected. Their mutual respect came with an understanding that once helmets were on, friendships gave way to fierce independence.
“He was friends with all the drivers, he made friends with everyone. He would joke with you, come over and talk with you, squeeze you, but he didn’t care behind-the-wheel of the racecar. He’d knock you out of the way.”
Bodine was never intimidated by the No. 3 car in his rearview mirror, though he recognized the pressure.
“When I saw his car in the rear view mirror, I just kept racing, but a lot of drivers would move over and let him go by. Well, with me being a hard-headed Yankee, I raced hard all my life and I was never intimidated by anyone,”
he recounted.
“I raced hard, raced clean, so when I saw the No. 3 in my mirror, I knew it was going to get tough.”
This stubborn courage was often his undoing.
“Even after he had run into you, spun you out, or did whatever he did, when I’d see him coming, I would think, ‘Well, he won’t do it this time,’ but darn, he did it. You’d give him the benefit of the doubt, but he’d always prove me wrong because he would use that bumper,”
Bodine recalled, the pain of lost races and bruised egos still evident years later.
“But once we left the track, we left it all behind us.”
For Dale Earnhardt Jr., this rivalry was more than just a headline—it was a lesson in the cost of pride and stubbornness, with victories and defeats measured not only in finishing positions but also in damaged relationships and the scars of unrelenting competition. His recollections, and those of Geoff and Todd Bodine, paint a rich, conflicted portrait of two men whose battles defined an era but also left emotional debris still felt today.
The broader impact of the Earnhardt-Bodine rivalry on NASCAR history is hard to overstate. Their fights brought crowds to their feet and kept television audiences tuned in, cementing both drivers as legends and shaping the sport’s aggressive style. Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s recounting of the events gives fans a raw, unvarnished look at what it meant to grow up in that world, the thrill of belonging to NASCAR’s most watched family, and the pain of watching pride overpower reason time and again. For those who experienced it firsthand, the memory is as sharp as ever—a testament to the dangers of letting grudges fester in a sport already fueled by intensity.
As for what comes next, Dale Earnhardt Jr. believes that stories like these matter, not only as entertainment but as vital lessons. He acknowledges that his father’s rivalry with Geoff Bodine, while unforgettable, serves as both a warning and a celebration of NASCAR’s untamed spirit. Younger drivers today look at legends like Earnhardt and Bodine for inspiration, but also as a reminder that even the fiercest athlete must learn when to let go. As Geoff Bodine concluded,
“Even though he spun me out a few times, I still miss him.”
