Daytona and the Legend of Dale Earnhardt

Daytona and the Legend of Dale Earnhardt
Track Was Scene of His Greatest Triumph, Greatest Tragedy
By MONTE DUTTON, AOL Exclusive

Richard Petty had one kind of charisma, and Dale Earnhardt had another. Petty was NASCAR's version of Andy Griffith; Earnhardt was its Clint Eastwood.

Both put a stamp on stock-car racing that will never fade. Both men won seven championships. Earnhardt was the only driver ever to be rookie of the year one year (1979) and champion the next. He also won six championships (1986, '87, '90, '91, '93, '94) in a span of nine seasons.

Daytona International Speedway was the scene of some of Earnhardt's crowning glories and also the track where he met his maker.

Never has the 2.5-mile speedway seen a moment more stirring than in 1998, when Earnhardt rolled down pit road after his only Daytona 500 triumph, with all the other pit crews lined up pay homage.

Never has it known greater sorrow than on Feb. 18, 2001, when Earnhardt was killed instantly in a fourth-turn pass on the final lap. That same part of the track had claimed the life of Earnhardt's best friend in racing, Neil Bonnett, eight years earlier.

No one else has ever won anywhere close to the 36 races Earnhardt won at Daytona, but only three of them were official Cup events. Moments after his fatal crash, Chevrolets owned by Earnhardt captured first and second place.

Never has NASCAR known a man with whom working people identified more. He was a ninth-grade dropout from a textile town, Kannapolis, N.C., who struggled to pay the bills and get out of the shadow of his father, Ralph, who himself was a short-track legend. Earnhardt's father never lived to see his son win 76 Cup races and seven championships. He died of a heart attack at age 45.

The "wrong side of the tracks" mentality remained etched in Earnhardt's character, even when he earned wealth and fame. In his mind, he was never a rich man, but he cherished the independence that all his achievements afforded him.

Was he tough? Yes. As tough as an NFL linebacker or a professional boxer. But he wouldn't have been able to pull off all those miracles had his skill not matched his aggressiveness.

Many insightful observers consider Earnhardt the greatest driver ever to strap himself behind the wheel of a stock car, and almost everyone would rank him somewhere in the top five.

One of the myths about Earnhardt is that he had a disregard for safety. The truth is that he was vitally concerned about. His fatal flaw may have been that his unconventional views derived from personal experience instead of scientific research.

For instance, Earnhardt always wore an open-face helmet not so much because it afforded him greater visibility, although it did, but because he considered a full-face helmet dangerous.

"It's better for an open-wheel racer, maybe, or a guy who's riding on a motorcycle," he said five months before his death, "but for a stock-car racer, it's just like a noose around your neck."

Earnhardt's greatest triumph was the 1998 Daytona 500 because NASCAR's most prestigious race had eluded him for so long. He had run out of gas in 1986, suffered a flat tire in 1990 and been outdueled by Dale Jarrett in 1996. What he yearned for more than anything else, was an eighth championship, one that would set him apart from Richard Petty, whose record of 200 victories was unapproachable.

After winning that day in Daytona, he was asked if he had achieved all his life's goals.

"Hell, no," Earnhardt replied. "I want to win that eighth championship. That's what my life and my career have been all about, winning championships. Nobody has ever won eight before, and that's what we're shooting for. We think we've got a great shot at it this year, and then we'll keep going from there."

Obviously, it wasn't to be.

Earnhardt was often moody and unpredictable, and he wasn't a particularly graceful loser. His fire, though, was one of the key ingredients in his greatness.

When he died, the South had not seen such an outpouring of emotion since Elvis Presley's death in 1977. In a perverse way, his death drew more fans to the sport simply because many Americans started noticing, drawn by the national attention devoted to the Earnhardt tragedy.


02-10-05 16:17 EST