MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Sitting in the Martinsville Speedway media center, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was framed perfectly.
On his right was an exact replica of the grandfather clock Earnhardt had just won, his first in 30 attempts at the half-mile track.
To his left was his father, the late Dale Earnhardt Sr., peering out from a picture on the wall, a photo with Neil Bonnett taken at the speedway in the early 1980s.
The clock — one of the most coveted trophies in NASCAR — is similar to the many presented to race winners at the track over the last 50 years. Where the 23-time race winner puts the trophy in his home will be left up to his girlfriend, Amy Reimann.
“I'm going to leave that up to Amy, where she wants to put it. I'm glad to hear her say she thought it was beautiful,” Earnhardt said. “I'm going to put it somewhere where I see it every day. I want to put it just inside the front door where you got to walk around the damn thing when you come in the house, but she probably won't let me set it there.”
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Earnhardt has fond memories of Martinsville and the grandfather clocks. His father earned six clocks in his career, the first in 1980 and the last in 1995.
One of those clocks was placed in the front of the Earnhardt home, in the front hall by the stairs. Junior would hear it ring every hour as he played on a little round rug with matchbox cars, listening to the Motorsports Racing Network drone on in the background.
Earnhardt has been visiting Martinsville since the 1980s. His earliest memories are of wearing panel knit sweatshirts labeled with the sponsor of a race and Buddy Arrington’s Ford.
“Guys would bring their racecars on the open trailer. They'd park the trailer up against the wall or the fence in the corner,” Earnhardt said. “We used to climb on top of those trailers, me and Brad Means, Scott Williams, Doug Williams' boy, Mike Whitcomb, Bob Whitcomb's son. Even Jason Jarrett. … We would run around, run all over the garage, do whatever we felt like doing.”
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That involved searching high and low for the best seat in the house, which Earnhardt claims was in any of the four corners. There, he and his friends could watch cars “working through the corner."
“Dad (and) Dave Marcis would be out there practicing. You'd get so close to the track, you could actually tell how the car handled,” Earnhardt said. “So close to it, you could see the car a little bit loose in, you could see guys getting through the center of the corner. I remember that. We always wanted to be as close to it as we could. This was a great place to do that.”
But then there was that grandfather clock, one of the most identifiable trophies on the Cup circuit.
“There are certain trophies in this sport that have remained the same. It's different,” said Steve Letarte, Earnhardt’s crew chief of four years. “You want to have one. This is one I was fortunate enough to (get with Jeff Gordon), now I was fortunate enough to work with Dale and get him his first.”
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The closest Earnhardt ever got to taking one home was in 2008 and 2011, when his finished second.
“Even with Tony Eury Sr. and Jr., in the Bud days, we had pretty quick cars here. Several years I think the car should have won, but the driver didn't.”
Earnhardt finished in the top five in five straight races from 2002 to 2004. The brushes with victory and the lack of a clock of his own stuck with him. Earnhardt brought up winning at Martinsville anytime the track was mentioned.
“Since Dale and I have worked together, he's always talked about this place,” Letarte said. “It's just different when he talks about it, kind of has that twinkle. He really wants that clock."
The twinkle is now something real, which Earnhardt still can’t believe.
“The clock seems so hard to get. This is so special,” Earnhardt said. “I try not to get too caught up in the emotion of it because it’s a team deal, but this is very personal and very special to me to be able to win here.”
Making it even more special is that this was Earnhardt’s last chance to win with Letarte before his crew chief leaves to work for NBC Sports next season.
And there’s that grandfather clock. Wherever it will reside in Earnhardt’s home, Letarte knows when he visits he’ll be reminded of a certain win, every hour, on the hour.
“Now hopefully when I'm at his house having a cold one we'll listen to the chime 10 years from now and smile,” Letarte said.