GREENSBORO, N.C. — Richard Childress went all in. He wagered everything — his yesterday, his today and his tomorrow.
He bet it on a late-season deal with a driver who was a maverick, and he bet it on nothing more than a sliver of a sponsorship.
And at the end of that 1981 season, less than a dozen races after the relationships began, the driver and the sponsor departed.
The story could have ended there. Driver gone, sponsor gone and Childress, who had tried to scratch out a living as a racer before going the ownership route, hopelessly broke and perhaps finished with NASCAR.
But it didn’t.
Two years later, both Dale Earnhardt and Wrangler reunited with Childress. The union produced a pair of championships and a slew of wins, and set Childress and Earnhardt on a path of success rarely seen in NASCAR.
“I borrowed everything I could on my home; I sold everything I had that I thought I could sell just to run Dale those 10 races,” Childress said Wednesday during a celebration at Wrangler’s headquarters here in Greensboro. “At the end of it, I was just in debt. I had borrowed money from some folks and everything just to run those 10 races.”
It’s fitting that the celebration of the region’s textile community, dubbed Jeansboro Day, took place this week, just as NASCAR’s premier series prepares to return to Talladega Superspeedway this weekend. Because it was at Talladega in the summer of ’81 that all the pieces first came together that would unite Childress, Earnhardt and Wrangler.
“I had already talked to Dale at the track earlier that day,” Childress said, “and put our deal together.”
Later, at the long-gone Anniston Inn just east of the track, he met with Phil Holmer of Goodyear, Wrangler officials and Joe Whitlock, who handled Earnhardt’s public relations at the time.
Earnhardt had won the 1980 title while driving for team owner Rod Osterlund, but when the team was sold mid-season to J.D. Stacy in ’81, the driver wanted out. A deal to run the final 11 races of the season was struck, with Childress and Wrangler.
By year’s end, Earnhardt had managed six top-10 finishes, but the strong runs were offset by mechanical issues and parts breakage.
“We ran good, but I knew we didn’t have what it took to run him for a championship,” Childress said.
Dale Earnhardt talks with Richard Childress after the two reunited in 1984.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. remembers that season, in particular his father’s second start with Childress.
“I remember the race at Bristol where you had the accident on pit road that second race that dad drove for you in 1981,” Earnhardt Jr. said Wednesday. “I was there. I know that because one of my most favorite photos of me and my father, they basically had these two tires stacked on top of each other and I’m standing in the wheel to get a better perspective to watch the race. I must have been 7 years old.
“But Dad is standing with me and we’re both watching the rest of the race; the car is in the background too damaged to continue. But my favorite photo of me and my father actually happened that day at Bristol.”
At the suggestion of Childress, Earnhardt left at the end of the year, taking the Wrangler funding with him to sign with veteran team owner Bud Moore.
Childress hired driver Ricky Rudd, and a late deal put Piedmont Airlines on the car and helped stabilize the organization. Wrangler officials, knowing his dire financial situation, had kicked in an extra $50,000 at year’s end to help Childress keep his operation upright.
“That really helped me going into the following year,” Childress said.
What would have he done without it?
“It’s hard to say,” he said. “I never look back. I just look ahead and that was one of those deals that helped me look ahead. I don’t know where we would have been without it.”
Before the ’84 season began, Childress said Wrangler officials wanted to reunite, with Earnhardt once again driving the No. 3 Chevrolet.
The Earnhardt/Moore union had produced just three wins over the course of two years. Childress was more than willing to agree.
“I’ll never forget Bud told me at Riverside, ‘Boy, that boy will break you,'” Childress recalled Moore telling him of Earnhardt.
Instead, the pair flourished.
A Legacy Continues
In 2010, Earnhardt brought the brand back to the race track for a one-off race, winning the XFINITY Series event that summer at Daytona International Speedway. The car, prepared by his own JR Motorsports group, sported the No. 3 and a paint scheme similar to his father’s.
He continues to serve as a spokesperson for the company, and says it is “amazing” that the relationship has endured for so long.
“My father first had Wrangler on the side of his car at the end of the 1980 season; he won the championship with Wrangler on the quarter panel of his car racing at Ontario in 1980 for the final race of the season,” Earnhardt Jr. said.
“Then he went into 1981 with Wrangler as a full-time sponsor. And we’re still working together today.
“I’m very proud of that relationship, very proud that it spanned so many years. Typically, relationships just don’t last that long. So it says a lot about Wrangler and what they get out of the sport itself; their connection to race fans and the legacy of the Earnhardt family and Richard, everything that Richard and Dad did together.”
