They say racing is in your blood. My father and uncle were always racing fans, they grew up going to regional tracks seeing the likes of Ray Evernham come through the ranks. We had a local dirt track here which my father took me to when I was a mere toddler, but it was bulldozed for a mall. In a bit of schadenfreude to the fans, the mall is now bulldozed as well, but I digress. I was concerned with childhood and teenage things and wasn't very fond of racing during those years. But once I hit college, the things that my father brought to my life came to grow and I started watching all kinds of racing again. I especially liked NASCAR. I went to my first race at Dover in the fall of 1995. I was surprised at how small and local it seemed compared to on television. It seemed like being at just a big local track. At the time, Jeff Gordon was exploding into the world of NASCAR. People did not like him because he was not southern, he looked more like a metrosexual than a good old boy, and he was immediately successful. The cult hero had always been Dale Earnhardt. Dale, the man who did not finish high school, who looked like he belonged more on a farm than in a room full of businessman, but was the biggest personality in a group of drivers already filled with them. Richard Petty was called "The King," but he was not the face of NASCAR. The Intimidator raced with a lot of grit, didn't care who he pissed off to get there, and was tremendously successful. Most people either loved or loathed him. Me, I liked him. I had a stronger affinity for the Ford drivers at the time, but I did like Dale. He made things fun. He was a seven-time champion in the sport, and only Richard Petty had done that before him. There was a big rivalry brewing between Earnhardt and Gordon. Earnhardt notoriously sent him a glass of milk at the annual awards show instead of alcohol. Nobody was going to make Dale fade away into the sunset, especially not this young punk.
Dale continued his success, although he had some injuries. One of the few things missing from his trophy case was a win at the Daytona 500, which happened in 1998. He infamously took out Terry Labonte to a chorus of boos in the 1999 Bristol night race. And Jeremy Mayfield took him on at Pocono in the summer of 2000 and won. The announcers were saying, "The Intimidator got intimated" and most wondered how Mayfield garnered the courage to do it. Maybe it was the drugs. (LOL totally other story) There were signs, though, that the Intimidator was starting to slow down. The "R" word actually came up. I just learned earlier this week that he told his owner, Richard Childress, that he was considering it. Richard dismissed it and encouraged him to continue. Dale was eventually going to transition to being an owner of his team, DEI, where his son and longtime driver Michael Waltrip were driving for him. He saw that as his future in the sport.
February 18, 2001 started out like any normal day. I always kind of held my breath with restrictor plate races. They always had the tendency towards spectacular flips, crashes, and pileups. Although nobody had ever been seriously injured during a restrictor plate track, some of the crashes were just plain awful. For NASCAR fans, the Daytona 500 is the Super Bowl. It was still an exciting day. I picked Ward Burton to win that day. He had always done well on restrictor plate tracks and was enjoying a lot of success at the time. Later in the race, he collided with Tony Stewart. Tony Stewart took a nasty flip and I thought there was the possibility that he was injured. But amazingly, he walked away from it. In fact, he was in communication with his spotters and said that he was fine. Obviously, he was not able to finish the race. As long as he was okay, that was okay. That particular wreck took out multiple cars, as they always do. Towards the end of the race, Dale Earnhardt, his two DEI drivers, Sterling Marlin and Ken Schrader were around the top 5. Michael Waltrip lead the race, and his brother Darrell was in the booth calling his brother to victory. Darrell, who retired the year before, moved to a position as a Fox analyst. The whole thing was very touching, actually. Darrell was in tears in the booth, ecstatic, and so was his brother, who won his first race in spectacular fashion. It was what this sport was all about-victory, emotion, first wins, families. Behind him, there was what looked a routine slam into the wall that collected several cars, including the senior Earnhardt. I didn't think much of it, nobody did. That was, until I saw the ambulance taking Dale very slowly away from the track. I am not a medical professional, so I did not understand quite was going on. I suppose if there was life to save, they would have been speeding. I thought perhaps it was a broken neck. Back at the time, I went on AOL to the racing chatrooms. For those of you kids, there used to be these things called chat rooms, where you could get together with people who shared your interests and just talk. People in the chat rooms were already speculating about what happened to Dale. I thought he may have broken his back, some people talked paralysis, and others said the inevitable. They thought he did not survive the crash. I just didn't believe it. It did not look that bad, and Dale Earnhardt was not the type of driver to lose his life. He was larger than life. I got off, had supper, and decided I would put on SportsCenter at 7:00. I missed the first minute but as I turned it on, either Alan Bestwick or Chris Economaki was on. At the end, whoever it was said, "And that's the kind of man he was." Was, dammit. He lost his life. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. I just couldn't believe it. I told my parents and when I did, I burst into tears. My father did not believe it, I told him to turn on SportsCenter to look for himself. Then I called my brother, who was an Earnhardt fan. He said that he knew when Ken Schrader said, "I don't know, I'm not a doctor" that something was seriously wrong. I talked to some of my friends who were fans, one of them said, "I am barely alive." I think that's how we all felt that night. Even though we had the Internet at that time, news was slow to come out. The Internet was not the literally 24-hour news leak as it is now with things like Twitter, Instagram, etc. We would have to wait until the next few days to find out what happened. It was a big deal. It was the top story on the local news, the national news, etc.
I didn't sleep well that night. As the night went on, I felt haunted, really. Rarely do you see the star of your sport perish in front of your eyes, millions of people of all ages. Imagine trying to explain that to your children. When I did fall asleep, eventually that 3 car crashing into the wall would pop into my dreams and I would wake up startled. I just think we all collectively experienced that loss that day. The days following were very somber. It was said that Dale experienced a basal skull fracture and that with that type of injury, it was impossible to survive. They talked about the impact, the fact that he had gone so quickly and died upon impact. In ridiculous American fashion, there were death threats against Sterling Marlin, who tapped Dale's car and sent him sideways. Dale's grieving son, Dale Earnhardt Junior, had to make a statement to the press telling people that death threats against anyone would not be tolerated. The following Friday, I believe, was a beautiful memorial service for Dale. I saw it on TV, somewhere around my house is the tape of it. The one story that resonated with me was a deeply personal one. They asked a youth minister to speak. Dale's daughter Taylor, who was only 11 or 12 at the time she lost her father, was a part of the children's group through MRN. They were taking a camping trip a year or two before, and they had to get Dale's permission for Taylor to go on the trip. The minister was nervous to speak with "The Intimidator" as he said. He was charged with keeping this man's daughter safe, and he had to make a case to Dale to go with him. But when went into the room to see Dale, Dale was sitting quietly on a rocking chair. He said we spoke father to father. He was not the man that was bumping people around on the track, he was just a dad.
The impact of Dale's loss was tremendous and can still be felt twenty years later. Rarely if ever do you see the star of your sport lose their life for the world to see. We just recently saw Tom Brady win a seventh Super Bowl. Unless there is some kind of truly freak accident, we will not see a football player lose their life. Michael Jordan may have gotten an injury or two over the years, but nothing like this. NASCAR was under a lot of fire for the death of their star, their hero. And there was a tragic precedent going into that year. There were three drivers who were killed in the various NASCAR divisions in 2000, including the grandson of Richard Petty. Young, talented Adam with the big Petty smile, died at the age of 19 after a crash at New Hampshire. Kenny Irwin, another talented driver, was killed at New Hampshire in another instance later that summer. In the truck series, driver Tony Roper was killed after a bad crash. This should have been a wakeup call, but these were somewhat ignored. After the death of Earnhardt, these things could not be ignored anymore. A safety device was mandatory, and "safer" barriers were put into place so that the impact would be lessened if a driver went head first into the wall as Dale did. As they stated on the race on Sunday, no drivers have lost their lives after Dale's death in the major divisions of NASCAR. Last year's Daytona 500 we thought that Ryan Newman did not survive a horrendous crash. Newman, a graduate of Purdue University with an engineering degree, worked with NASCAR on safer designs for cars. He likely helped save his own life.
I still think there is work to be done in safety. Sunday night's final lap featured a fiery multiple-car crash where once again, you were hoping that everyone was okay. I cannot honestly look at a crash like that and say that NASCAR has mastered safety. There still needs to be a higher standard. Dale would have wanted that. As for Dale's legacy, there will never be another like him. I think something was lost that day that never came back to the sport. When you lose your star, the person who is larger than life, it takes something out of you. Innocence is lost. The sport lost its true north that day. I guess it was a reminder that even the toughest of drivers and people are not above losing their lives. Everyone is invincible. I will remember Dale fondly for his determination and passion for what he did. He was driven to be the best, and he was. He may be gone, but he will never, ever be forgotten. The spirit of Dale Earnhardt will always be with us. If I could tell children who never who never saw him race about him I would say, "He gave it everything he had in this life. You do the same."
No comments:
Post a Comment