The third child of racing driver Ralph Earnhardt and Martha Earnhardt, he began his career in 1975. Earnhardt began his professional career in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series in 1975, making his points race debut at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina in the 1975 World 600. He had made his Grand National debut in 1974 in an unofficial invitational exhibition race at Metrolina Speedway. Earnhardt competed in eight more races until 1979. When he joined car owner Rod Osterlund Racing in 1979, he won his first race at Bristol and captured four poles, scoring eleven top-fives and seventeen top-tens, and finished seventh in the points standings despite missing four races due to a broken collarbone, winning Rookie of the Year honors. During his sophomore season, Earnhardt won his first Winston Cup points championship. He is the only driver in NASCAR Cup history to follow a Rookie of the Year title with a NASCAR Winston Cup Championship the next season.
After the 1983 season, Earnhardt returned to Richard Childress Racing, replacing Ricky Rudd in the No. 3. During the 1984 and 1985 seasons, Earnhardt went to victory lane six times. The 1986 season saw Earnhardt win his second career Winston Cup Championship and the first owner's championship for Richard Childress Racing. He successfully defended his championship the following year, going to victory lane eleven times and winning the championship by 489 points over Bill Elliott. In the 1987 season, he earned the nickname "the Intimidator", due in part to the 1987 Winston All-Star Race. During this race, Earnhardt was briefly forced into the infield grass but kept control of his car and returned to the track without giving up his lead. The maneuver is now referred to as the "Pass in the Grass".
The 1988 season saw Earnhardt racing with a new sponsor, GM Goodwrench, after Wrangler Jeans dropped its sponsorship in 1987. During this season, he changed the color of his paint scheme from blue and yellow to the signature black in which the No. 3 car was painted for the rest of his life. The 1990 season started for Earnhardt with victories in the Busch Clash and his heat of the Gatorade Twin 125's. Earnhardt won nine races that season and won his fourth Winston Cup title, beating Mark Martin by 26 points. He also became the first multiple winner of the annual all-star race, The Winston. The 1991 season saw Earnhardt win his fifth Winston Cup championship. In 1994, Earnhardt achieved a feat that he himself had believed to be impossible—he scored his seventh Winston Cup championship, tying Richard Petty. It was his final NASCAR championship and his final season for the GM Goodwrench Chevrolet Lumina. In 1995, he won five races, including his first road course victory at Sears Point. He also won the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a win he called the biggest of his career.
On February 15, 1998, Earnhardt finally won the Daytona 500 in his 20th attempt. The rest of the season did not go as well, and the Daytona 500 was his only victory that year. In the 2000 season, Earnhardt had a resurgence, which was commonly attributed to neck surgery he underwent to correct a lingering injury from his 1996 Talladega crash. He scored what were considered the two most exciting wins of the year—winning by 0.010 seconds over Bobby Labonte at Atlanta, then gaining seventeen positions in the final four laps to win at Talladega. During the Daytona 500 at Daytona International Speedway on February 18, 2001, Earnhardt was killed in a three-car crash on the final lap of the race. He collided with Ken Schrader after making small contact with Sterling Marlin and hit the outside wall head-on. Earnhardt was pronounced dead at the Halifax Medical Center at 5:16 pm Eastern Standard Time; he was 49 years old. An autopsy concluded that Earnhardt sustained a fatal basilar skull fracture.
Earnhardt's death was regarded in the racing industry as being a crucial moment in improving safety in all aspects of car racing, especially NASCAR. He has been inducted into numerous halls of fame, including the NASCAR Hall of Fame inaugural class in 2010. Earnhardt Tower, a seating section at Daytona International Speedway, was opened and named in his honor a month before his death at the track. In 2002 the Dale Earnhardt Plaza was erected in his hometown of Kannapolis, North Carolina. Earnhardt has several roads named after him, including a street in his hometown Kannapolis. In 2010, the Intimidator 305 roller coaster opened at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia. Named after Earnhardt, the ride's trains were modeled after his black-and-red Chevrolet.
Earnhardt appeared as himself in the movie Stroker Ace in 1983. He also voiced himself in King of the Hill in the episode titled "Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby's Saga". His life story was made into a movie by ESPN in 2004 entitled 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story. Paul Newman narrated a documentary on Earnhardt's life entitled Dale, which premiered in 2007.
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