![\"NASCAR](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_NASCAR-Xfinity-Series-Wawa-250-Powered-By-Coca-Cola-Qualifying.jpg\")
Dale Earnhardt Jr. left DEI racing in 2007, and the team became defunct in 2009..(Image: Getty)<\/p>\nDale Earnhardt Jr was able to catch a rare glimpse of his past when photos from inside the Dale Earnhardt, Inc (DEI) complex were posted online, but the photos were swiftly deletedDale Earnhardt Jr. left DEI racing in 2007, and the team became defunct in 2009..(Image: Getty)<\/p>\n
Dale Earnhardt Jr got a shocking peek into his past when snapshots from inside the Dale Earnhardt, Inc (DEI) facility surfaced online, though the images were quickly removed.<\/p>\n
Located in Mooresville, North Carolina, the facility houses Earnhardt family racing memorabilia from bygone days, but following Dale Earnhardt Sr’s devastating death during the 2001 Daytona 500<\/a>, operational control of the company and its assets passed to his widow and Dale Jr’s stepmother<\/a>, Teresa, leading to the business’s decline.<\/p>\n DEI ceased operations as a racing organization in 2009, not long after Dale Jr. walked away from the No. 8 vehicle and departed the team his father established for Hendrick Motorsports.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Tennessee Titans fire coach shortly after his damning comments on Cam Ward<\/a>READ MORE: Troy Aikman’s treatment of Caleb Williams called out during Commanders-Bears<\/a><\/p>\n Following this, friction escalated between the NASCAR Hall of Famer and his stepmother to such an extent that Earnhardt and his sister, Kelley, were denied entry to the grounds where much of his racing history, along with his father’s burial site, remains.<\/p>\n A week ago, someone in the r\/NASCAR subreddit shared pictures from a private walkthrough inside the grounds, which has remained off-limits to visitors since the COVID-19 outbreak.<\/p>\n The pictures reveal Earnhardt’s No. 8 DEI vehicle still displayed at the location, a nostalgic artifact Earnhardt assumed had vanished long ago.<\/p>\n “I was just glad to know that stuff’s still well taken care of. It made me feel good that some of my cars are still there, like in the front,” Earnhardt revealed on his Dale Jr. Download podcast.<\/p>\n “When you go, and you’re looking back, they still celebrate all of the history.”<\/p>\n To the dismay of Earnhardt and motorsport enthusiasts everywhere, the pictures displaying the racecars-turned-relics were removed by the original poster, though in a subsequent post entitled “Why I took the DEI posts down,” the user clarified they weren’t “forced by DEI or anyone at the foundation to take the pictures down.<\/p>\n “I was asked since the foundation was getting flooded with emails. It was a courtesy deal,” the Reddit user explained.<\/p>\n “The foundation was very accommodating while we were there and it was a special opportunity for us and I’m glad I got to share them for a little while with everyone on here.”<\/p>\n READ MORE: Victor Hovland points toward ‘spirit of Ryder Cup’ after injury controversy<\/a>READ MORE: Patrick Mahomes message to Aidan Hutchinson was to the point after late, brutal hit<\/a><\/p>\n It’s believed that Earnhardt’s acknowledgment of the photographs prompted racing enthusiasts to contact the facility requesting entry or a public reopening.<\/p>\n The circumstances surrounding how the tour was arranged remain unclear, and the removal of the images left motorsport fans discouraged about potential future access to the DEI facility.<\/p>\n “Thanks for sharing. Likely something I’ll never have the opportunity to see for myself,” one Reddit user remarked on the initial post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dale Earnhardt Jr was able to catch a rare glimpse of his past when photos from inside the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":304961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[1406,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-304960","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-nascar","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115377392399884922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"15](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_15-Feb-2004-Dale-Earnhardt-Jr-does-doughnuts-in-the-infield-after-winning-the-Daytona-500-at-Dayto.webp\")
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won the 2004 Daytona 500 while racing for DEI.(Image: Getty)<\/p>\n