There have been a lot of documentaries, films and TV movies about Dale Earnhardt. So many, in fact, that when the trailer for We’ve Lost Dale Earnhardt: 25 Years Later aired during the Duel races in February, I got no fewer than three separate texts from friends complaining about “yet another Dale doc.”
Which, they’re right, but there is one recent exception. In 2025, Amazon Prime released a four-part docuseries simply titled Earnhardt about the life of the Intimidator.
I wasn’t even three years old when Dale passed. I didn’t start watching it for another year (the passion was passed down from my grandfather Maurice Jones, who raced amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s and ’60s), but Dale’s career is such a touchstone of the sport. However, there hasn’t been anything this definitive or expansive, in terms of looking at Dale on and off the track.
I talked with director Joshua Altman last year about the series, as well. Altman was an editor on Minding the Gap, a skateboarding documentary that was eventually nominated for an Oscar, back in 2018.
But I never actually reviewed the series, so I went back through it a couple months ago, and it truly is the definitive chronicle of Earnhardt’s career and all aspects of the man behind the wheel of the No. 3. To the point where I don’t think we ever need another Earnhardt production. Ever.
That sounds super “get off my lawn” and has an air of finality to it, but for good reason: this docuseries is just that good.
I loved it. It’s nearly four hours long in total and tackles pretty much everything that went into Earnhardt’s career. It talks to almost everyone that played major roles in his time in NASCAR, and it’s riveting despite how much we already know about his life. There’s also a ton of never-before-seen and behind-the-scenes footage, which is fantastic.
I’m also a big proponent of uncensored stuff like this — I know broadcasts have to censor things for FCC purposes, but it’s more fun to see the unedited version of Dale, as he really was. Not that there’s that much in here to be super explicit, but all the bleeps are pretty distracting when it comes to things like Radioactive and TV documentaries.
All that is to say this is the purest distillation of the Intimidator in his element, as he was during his career. I think the series does a really good job of showing how the elder Dale had to fight to earn his father’s respect and admiration, how that affected him and how it transcended generations into Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kelley Earnhardt having to do the same.
When I sat down with Altman, he told me he didn’t know but so much about racing when he came on board the project. Honestly, though, I think that added a lot to it, because it makes it a little more accessible to those who might not be as in the weeds as us NASCAR nuts are. At the same time, that unfamiliarity isn’t evident in the final product.
The docuseries does a fantastic job of exploring the mythos of the Intimidator, from young gun to Intimidator to a somewhat softer personality, as well as his relationships with his family and competitors.
We get a lot of commentary from Darrell Waltrip, mostly focused on his contentious on-track relationship with Earnhardt, but also giving us a look at their eventual friendship. All the interview subjects were great, and we get pretty soul-laid-bare stuff from Dale Jr., especially when it comes to the 2001 Pepsi 400. Junior talks about making peace with Daytona by going out and sitting near where his dad had died six months before.
I also really liked that Earnhardt delves into how he somewhat softened later on, especially with the birth of his daughter Taylor, though his on-track determination never wavered.
Shoutout to them for spending time on moments like the 1998 Daytona 500, of course, but also for the year prior, when he flipped the No. 3 in the same race but kept driving it after it started back up.
My only complaints were that there were a couple glaring omissions for something this complete, mostly centered around the events after his crash. There’s no clip of the Mike Helton announcement of Earnhardt’s death (we’ve seen it a million times, but it felt like a necessary inclusion) and no mention of Steve Park winning for Dale Earnhardt, Inc. the week after his owner’s death.
There’s also no mention of Kevin Harvick winning in the renumbered No. 29 a couple weeks after that, which seemed strange.
But those are minor complaints and common knowledge to us NASCAR people, even if I think Park and Harvick would be cool addendums to Earnhardt’s legacy for the layman watching it.
Overall, five out of five stars and just a truly excellent final product. Highly recommend it.
You can watch it on Amazon Prime here.
Adam Cheek joined Frontstretch as a contributing writer in January 2019. A 2020 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he covered sports there and later spent a year and a half as a sports host on 910 the Fan in Richmond, VA. He's freelanced for Richmond Magazine and the Richmond Times-Dispatch and also hosts the Adam Cheek's Sports Week podcast. Adam has followed racing since the age of three, inheriting the passion from his grandfather, who raced in amateur events up and down the East Coast in the 1950s.
Its been 25 years since the passing of Dale Earnhardt. As Nascar has tried to build star power into its current driver lineup, so as to appeal to the coveted 18 to 49 year old demographic (or the -7 to 24 year old demographic in
“Dale AD” years), and wonder if the persistent reminders of past glory or the sports heroes is doing good or bad for increasing interest. The production of the (whatever they called the several part series that featured the young stars) was way more interesting to this 70+ year old than having more about a story I knew all too well. I was a Dale Sr fan, but a bigger fan of stock car and sprint car racing in the present. This may be profitable in the short term, but at the expense of attracting newer fans. Just an opinion.
Interesting observation. F1 has been lucky that for decades, one legend replaced another, almost seamlessly. Schumacher followed closely by Hamilton, overlapping slightly with Verstappen. (One could argue Alonso and/or Vettel bridged the small gap between Schumacher’s dominant era, and Hamilton’s dominant era.
NASCAR has not been quite so lucky. After Earnhardt Sr/Bill Elliott, we had Gordon, then Johnson. But since then, we’ve had a mix of great careers (Harvick, Busch brothers, Hamlin, and others), but not drivers who challenge the “greatest” discussion.
So yes, I can see how rehashing the glory of yesteryear, when there is no current equivalent, could impair interest in the sport. I still feel stage racing and playoffs/chase have played a large part here. Harvick may have had three titles, possibly more but for the points structure, and had the charisma and polarizing personality to get fans to tune in, whether to cheer for or against him. As it played out, he was just another great driver in a pile of other greats.
As it is, a driver needs amazing luck to win titles. Being great across the course of a season isn’t good enough. It’s largely random as to who is crowned champion. So we don’t see those legendary champions.
I do a lot of trend lines and stats and ‘win and you’re in’ chased away
millions of viewers. I’ve been tracking viewers even longer than Frontstretch has. The loss of ‘favorites’ is hard to track because it doesn’t happen all at once. Danica wasn’t the answer and neither was Bubba…although Digger (that stupid cartoon character groundhog) did begin at the start of the great decline. But it kept declining after that got tanned.
Reacting to fan feedback and changing rules accordingly just tells me the leadership of the sport has no confidence in actually leading. A Steve Phelps without all the ‘checks and balances’ I think could have helped things. But he was in an uphill fight for decades.
Well said. They’ve been reactionary for the most part, rather than having a clear plan forward. What they have tried (stage cautions, chase/playoffs) seem to have hurt the sport rather than advanced it. And yeah, Digger…why anyone thought a buried camera was a good idea beyond a couple of shots a week, and piling a stupid mascot atop this is hard to comprehend.