MILESTONEMOMENTS

1999 BRISTOL NIGHT RACE DALE EARNHARDT’S CONTROVERSIAL ‘RATTLE HIS CAGE’ MOVE ON TERRY LABONTE

LOVED BY ROUGHLY HALF OF THE NASCAR FAN BASE AND LOATHED by the other for much of his career, Dale Earnhardt built a reputation early on as one of the sport’s most aggressive drivers. Nicknamed “The Intimidator,” the second-generation driver raced especially aggressively on the short tracks where contact is generally deemed more acceptable – and there was no short track on the schedule where Earnhardt customarily took a more no-holds-barred approach than Bristol Motor Speedway, a highbanked .533-mile short track in eastern Tennessee.

Four years after finishing second to Terry Labonte in the Bristol Night Race when he sent Labonte’s No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet spinning just as it took the checkered flag, it was Earnhardt vs. Labonte Round Two in 1999 — but this time, Earnhardt spun Labonte in Turns 1 and 2 on the final lap and moved past to score a highly unpopular victory that drew boisterous disapproval from the 100,000-plus fans in attendance.

Earnhardt, meanwhile, quipped in Victory Lane that he hadn’t meant to wreck Labonte, only to “rattle his cage.”