1 Driver Claimed Every Earnhardt Except Kelley Wrecked Him at Some Point
Race long enough and people will wreck you multiple times. It’s a NASCAR fact of life. Still, Jerry Glanville didn’t have to compete very often before ending up on the wrong side of the Earnhardts: Dale, Junior, and Kerry.
The former Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons head coach arrived in the top ranks of NASCAR late in life and had more to offer in the way of humor than driving skill. However, his stories about the Earnhardts could fill books.
Jerry Glanville started in NASCAR after most had already retired
Jerry Glanville was 50 when he made his NASCAR Xfinity Series debut with three starts in 1992 before beginning training camp with the Atlanta Falcons. After failing to qualify in his first appearance, his race debut came on June 6 at Orange County Speedway in North Carolina, where he qualified 26th and finished 22nd after a crash.
Glanville made five more starts in 1992-93, with a best finish of 20th at Volusia County Speedway in Florida in the first race he completed.
After the Falcons fired him in 1993, Glanville resumed racing, this time in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and the ARCA Menards circuit. He made 15 starts in trucks, with 14th place at Tucson and Louisville his best results.
Glanville rejoined the Craftsman Series from 1996-99, making 13 more starts without cracking the top 10. In all, he made 33 appearances in NASCAR’s second- and third-tier series without winning.
Dale Earnhardt taught him the racing ropes
Easily the most surprising aspect of Jerry Glanville’s racing career is his connection to Dale Earnhardt, the second man to capture seven NASCAR Cup Series championships. For some reason, The Intimidator took a liking to Glanville and worked with him at Richmond International Speedway.
“We weren’t warm and fuzzy, but I think he respected me from football, as a coach,” Glanville told ESPN.com. “And he’d tell me when he was coaching me, ‘Hell! Come on! Get in there harder!’ He’d get after me. ‘Run that damn thing in there!’ And I’d complain that it wouldn’t turn, and he’d yell, ‘Turn the son of a b**** with the brake!’ It was amazing.”
There is undoubtedly some exaggeration in his recollection, but Glanville told the website that his unlikely mentor broached the idea of having the coach drive at least once for Dale Earnhardt, Inc., in the second-tier NASCAR series.
“I was driving a Buick, and Dale wanted me to drive his Busch car,” he said. “I sat up on the wheel, but he laid back so far I could barely see over the bottom of the window sill.”
Jerry Glanville’s run-ins started with Dale Earnhardt
According to Jerry Glanville, Dale Earnhardt’s interest in bringing him to DEI was simple: “He said, ‘The way you drive? We’ll go straight to the front!'” Glanville said. “Then he wrecked me at Rockingham and said, ‘I didn’t teach you that, did I?’ And he’d just laugh.”
That was the beginning of an odd relationship with one of NASCAR’s best-known families.
“Dale wrecked me at Rockingham. Then Junior wrecked me somewhere – at the Monster Mile (Dover), I think,” Glanville said. “So, now I’m racing Charlotte, and Kerry wrecks me on Lap 6. We qualified 11th and ran to like third on Lap 6. And Kerry wrecks me. So, TV comes by (and) says, ‘Coach, that was awful.’
“I said, ‘Somebody go get Earnhardt’s daughter! She’s the only one in the family that hasn’t wrecked me!'”
For the record, the ARCA Series wreck with Kerry Earnhardt is the only one readily corroborated through Racing-Reference.info data. That’s not to say the others didn’t occur or that it isn’t a funny Jerry Glanville tale anyway.
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