Yesterday was the 24th anniversary of the tragic death of Dale Earnhardt. At this point everybody knows the story and has seen the video: The 7-time NASCAR Cup Series champion crashed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 while racing for third place, as the two cars he owned driven by Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr. led the race.

Earnhardt suffered a basilar skull fracture in the crash, and his death was announced a short time later. The Intimidator was only 49 years old, and his death signaled a new era for safety in NASCAR after he became the third driver to pass away from a crash in less than a year.

Of course many NASCAR fans will tell you the sport has never been the same since Earnhardt's death. But luckily, his son Dale Jr. has been around to carry on his dad's legacy as the face of the sport.

Earnhardt Jr. retired from the Cup Series in 2017, but he's remained involved as one of the sport's greatest ambassadors, both in the broadcast booth and through his own media company, Dirty Mo Media, and his podcast, the Dale Jr. Download. And yesterday on his podcast, Junior revealed a special gift he received - that happened to arrive on the anniversary of his dad's death.

Apparently, a man who previously owned one of Earnhardt's race cars from the '90s recently passed away, and in his will he left the car to Junior. As Dale explains on his podcast, the car was originally owned by Richard Childress Racing and still has the original interior. After it was sold, the car apparently did some traveling and at one point was in Ireland.

But as it turns out, Junior already had a piece of the car in his collection before he even got the rest of it.

When the car was sold to the collector, RCR took the original hood off of it, and that hood from the last time Earnhardt drove the car ended up at the home of Junior's uncle. Well as his uncle was getting rid of his memorabilia, Junior kept the hood from the car - and now he has the entire car to go with it.

We don't yet know which races the car ran, but Junior says he hopes to be able to find that out from RCR's records so he can pinpoint exactly when Dale drove the car. But as you can see in the video, it's in pretty incredible shape for a 30+ year old car - and of course it still has the iconic #3 paint scheme and all the sponsor logos.

Going back and comparing it to the paint schemes and logos Dale ran in the early '90s, it looks like this may be one of the cars from the 1992 season, when Earnhardt finished 9th in the points with only one win on the season, during the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. But I guess we'll learn more when Junior is able to get the information on the car from RCR.

Either way, pretty badass addition to his collection - and a special memory for Junior on the anniversary of his dad's death.