When a North Carolina police department told drivers that his late father’s name would not get them out of a speeding ticket, Dale Earnhardt Jr. stepped in to bargain.
On Wednesday, October 14, the Greensboro Police Department posted on X that “Raise hell, Praise Dale” is not an appropriate response when officers ask why you were speeding. The post drew plenty of attention online, and Dale Jr. replied with a compromise of his own.
“Surely that should reduce it down to 10mph or less over the limit… 😀” he wrote.
The department answered him in seven words.
“Sir, that will make it 107 mph.”
Dale Jr. asked for a break in his father’s name, and the police raised the number instead.
Fox News described his reply as Dale Jr. going on the offensive in defense of his late father’s memory. He did it with a joke and a smiley face, and Greensboro police kept the joke going.
The Phrase Honors Dale Earnhardt, and Old-School Fans Let NASCAR Know It
“Raise hell, Praise Dale” is a way fans honor the late Dale Earnhardt, who got his start racing in his hometown of Kannapolis, North Carolina, working on cars with his father, Ralph Earnhardt. Greensboro sits about an hour from Kannapolis, so the police were answering a phrase with roots close to home.
The name still carries weight behind the wheel for good reason. Dale Sr. won seven NASCAR Cup Series championships, in 1980, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994, a total tied with Richard Petty and Jimmie Johnson for the all-time record. He also won 76 Cup Series races.
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NASCAR joined in too. In a tweet from the sport’s own account, it told fans to “Leave the speeding for the race track.” Old-school NASCAR fans bashed that response almost instantly, and one of them reminded the sport where it came from.
“This is not the kind of bootlegging attitude you guys started off with,” the fan wrote in response.
That fan was pointing back to the beginning. NASCAR’s roots run to moonshine runners who souped up their cars to outrun the law, and a chant about Dale Earnhardt at a traffic stop sits closer to that history than a reminder about the race track.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Got No Break From His Father on His Own First Speeding Ticket
Dale Jr. has his own history with a speeding ticket. On the Ask Jr. segment of his Dale Jr. Download podcast, he once told the story of his first speeding ticket. He was 16 and got caught leaving the Mooresville farm, and his father’s answer was short.
“He goes, ‘He give you a ticket?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He goes, ‘I guess you gotta get a job.’ I said, ‘Alright.’”
That job turned out to be at an Exxon station, where he pumped gas and cleaned windshields to pay for the ticket.
Dale Earnhardt never gave his own 16-year-old a break on a speeding ticket. Decades later, that same son tried to bargain the excuse built on his father’s name down to 10 mph over, and Greensboro police raised it to 107. “Raise hell, Praise Dale” still honors the man from Kannapolis, and it still does not get anybody off easy.
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