Every NASCAR fan knows just how much\u00a0Dale Earnhardt Sr. loved the Deer Head Shop. It was the Intimidator\u2019s personal race shop on his Mooresville, North Carolina, property, part of the early Dale Earnhardt Inc. campus. More importantly, it was a sacred place where he and his crew worked on late-model cars for himself, Dale Jr., and Kerry, among others.<\/p>\n
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Right from working on and racing his Sikkens Busch car to Dale Jr. getting pranked with a Lady Cop on his milestone birthday, the Deer Head Shop has seen it all. However, the shop has remained largely untouched after Dale Earnhardt died in 2001, kept off limits by Teresa Earnhardt. But Junior and longtime friend Kevin Pennell took a trip down memory lane and relived the last time they walked out of the shop for good.<\/p>\n
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Two Beer opens up about his reaction to Earnhardt\u2019s death<\/p>\n
Kevin Pennell, also called Two Beer, was one of the crew members in Earnhardt\u2019s garage. In a recent conversation with Junior on the Dale Jr. Download podcast, he couldn\u2019t help but recall the last time he said goodbye to the shop. He said, \u201cI thought the Monday morning afterwards, you know, I felt really, really lost, like, you know, no different than you would have been. Me and Tony Jr. looked at each other and kind of, you know, like, what are we going to do? I mean, we just didn\u2019t have an answer. We walked across the street and walked in there, and sat down. In the Deer Head shop picnic table.\u201d<\/p>\n
It all started years ago when Pennell began his career with Dale Jr. while still in high school. What started as a part-time stint quickly became a full-time gig shortly after graduation. He spent his days at the Deer Head Shop, working on late-model cars, even before he got the opportunity to meet\u00a0Dale Earnhardt<\/a> in person. During that time, Kevin Pennell worked alongside longtime Earnhardt crew members Tony Eury Sr. and Tony Eury Jr., learning the ropes from some of the sport\u2019s most respected names.<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The Deer Head Shop featured three garage bays, Dale Earnhardt\u2019s office, and a loft upstairs, which was stacked with car parts, fluids, shelves, and a cedar closet filled with his uniforms from the 70s onward. It also had items belonging to his children. The shop actually got its name because the loft\u2019s outer wall was lined with dozens of mounted deer heads. We\u2019re talking about the big ones. Fair to say, \u2018The Intimidator\u2019 loved to collect trophies.<\/p>\n But all that changed when Teresa Earnhardt claimed everything following her husband\u2019s tragic death in 2001. Tensions boiled over when Junior.<\/a> moved out of Dale Earnhardt Inc. in 2008. It all started when Junior had asked for a 51% ownership stake in the company, but that was denied by his stepmother. And the company officially closed down after the 2009 NASCAR season.<\/p>\n