A Dale Earnhardt Fantasy Camp could be coming

Dale Earnhardt Inc. officials were at Carowinds on Wednesday to help celebrate the announcement the theme park will build a roller coaster called the Intimidator that will open next spring, nine years after Earnhardt's death in a crash on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. It will be similar to the Intimidator 305 that will debut in April at Kings Dominion.

This is part of a change at DEI as it reaches more for a fan experience. Expect to see changes to the DEI shop that could be more open to fans in time for next year’s Dale Earnhardt Day on April 29 and just before all the activities in May at the track and the NASCAR Hall of Fame where Earnhardt is expected to be selected as part of the Hall’s first class.

I talked with Jeff Steiner, executive VP and general manager at DEI about some of the things fans might see that’s new in the future. DEI could have more of the shop open to fans to display artifacts of Earnhardt’s. Think of it as kind of like a Graceland for NASCAR fans.

“We’re going to have greater fan experiences,’’ he said. “More ways to see Dale’s original shop at DEI and other elements that people haven’t seen before. We launched last month the Earnhardt Technologies Group that supplies state-of-the-art transmissions and gears and engineering services to many different NASCAR teams. And then Jeffrey (Earnhardt’s) race team will be there.

“Our new tag line that we’ll be announcing in another month is “The Legend Lives Here.’ He isn’t gone. He still lives on.

Steiner also talked about how Earnhardt had about 50 personal vehicles and how many of those have not been publicly displayed and could be shown in one section.

Of course, the most intriguing idea is the Earnhardt Fantasy Camp. Here’s what Steiner said about that:

“It’s in the planning stages now,’’ Steiner said, “so we haven’t hung the sign out there that we’re open to doing that but based on some fan feedback that we’ve gotten there’s a high likelihood that we’ll probably be looking at some of that next year in the spring or summer.

“You could spend some time at the race shop, fish in Dale’s ponds, hang out and have dinner with Randy Earnhardt, Dale’s brother, and Kerry and just talk about certain races and then maybe head off to the track and go through the NASCAR driving school for an afternoon and actually get in a race car.’’

For an Earnhardt fan it could be quite an experience.

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