Dale Earnhardt Jr. recalled that his father, seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt, confronted two men who trespassed on his North Carolina farm and shot a deer in 1993. Earnhardt tackled and punched the armed man, breaking his own hand, highlighting both his fierce temperament and his attachment to the deer living on his property.

The men had reportedly been drinking at a bar before returning to the farm, where they shot a deer and later came back to collect it. Earnhardt waited with his farm manager, recognised one man as someone who had worked on his tractor earlier that day, and detained him until police arrived; he later concealed the real cause of his injury and cut off the cast before the 1994 Daytona 500.