Ryan McGee recalls Dale Earnhardt Sr. prank that messed up a blind date

Ryan McGee reflected on the time with NASCAR great Dale Earnhardt Sr. nearly ruined his date with a prank. The ESPN personality recently appeared on The Dale Jr. Download and talked about the time when he interviewed Earnhardt for a show called RPM Tonight which aired on ESPN2.

“I had a date that night,” McGee said. “I had no idea I was going to be going to the racetrack. So I was dressed for the date.”

McGee, who was wearing a blue shirt and khakis for the blind date, said that Earnhardt wanted to talk to him after he finished a run at the track in Charlotte. Once Earnhardt finished his run, McGee said he “grabbed my shoulders and he squeezed the back of your neck and he took his hand and he smacked me right in the center the back.”

But what McGee didn’t realize is the late NASCAR legend “put his fingers in some sort of bear grease and just put hand prints on my back.” McGee then said when the interview was done and went back to the garage, everyone was laughing at him, but he didn’t know what was going on. It wasn’t until McGee got in his truck and saw that Earnhardt’s handprints were on the back of his shirt.”

“That was a typical Dale Earnhardt prank because it was funny but it wasn’t funny,” McGee added. “And I’m an idiot because I threw the shirt away. It was ruined. But how amazing would it be to have this shirt?”

Reflecting on the legacy of Dale Earnhardt Sr.

Had McGee held on to the shirt, it could be worth a significant amount of money today. Earnhardt won seven Cup Series and the Daytona 500 in 1998, making him one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. In a recent interview with the Charlotte Observer, Earnhardt’s son, Dale Earnhardt Jr. talked about losing his father in an accident at the Daytona 500 in 2001.

“It was really scary,” he said. “I was lucky that Kelley (Earnhardt, Dale Jr.’s sister) came into my life and wanted to be a bigger part of it on the professional side and be a guiding voice in my professional life and in my personal life. I’m still so close to her today because she filled a lot of that void and kept me from spiraling into wasting away my career and my life.”