I Killed Dale Earnhardt
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2001, at 3:00 AM ET
As they rounded the final turn at Daytona yesterday, I couldn't help but think to myself: This is the greatest day in NASCAR history. The race had been incredible. NASCAR set new rules on aerodynamics this year, giving the cars more wind resistance. This slowed down the leaders and let cars catch up from behind (by drafting in the now-larger wind shadow). Last year, cars stretched out in a single-file line, and there were few lead changes—very boring for the fans. This year, the lead pack bunched up "three-wide" (three cars side-by-side on the track), several rows deep, for much of the afternoon. The lead swapped hands every few laps.
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StumbleUponFans live for this kind of close-quarters racing, which calls for split-second moves at top speed. Drivers jostle for position within a hurtling swarm, swerving into each other and then away ("trading paint"), nudging bumpers from behind to knock a car off course. It's thrilling, due in no small part to the threat of a spectacular crash. And in fact, there was a spectacular but harmless crash. Late in the race, Tony Stewart's car flipped upside down onto another driver's roof before tumbling and spinning down the track. A few lucky cars sped right under Stewart as he floated through the air. Many others weren't so lucky. Big excitement, no big injuries.
But the biggest excitement of the day lay in the fact that Dale Earnhardt, fan favorite, the sport's largest personality, was in the thick of the hunt from the get-go. Earnhardt, known as "The Intimidator," was NASCAR's biggest star.
Sure, kids and casual fans root for clean-cut Jeff Gordon. But Earnhardt, the mustachioed good ol' boy, was the one who threw his mean, black car around the track and looked to smack enemies out of his way. He was the true hero for die-hard NASCAR types—the ones that bring coolers of Bud to the track. Earnhardt was a riveting persona amid the Bible-clutching aw-shucks-ers that make up most of NASCAR's driving corps. After one early run-in at Daytona yesterday, the vengeful Earnhardt even stuck his fist out his window, flipping a Mach 1 bird to the car beside him. Fox cameras caught the moment.
In this crucial kickoff to its new NASCAR contract, Fox couldn't have asked for much better: a tight race, lots of dangerous action, and Earnhardt near the front. As the pack rounded the last lap, he sped along in third place. His son Dale Jr. held second. And no-name Michael Waltrip—whose car Earnhardt owned and whose team Earnhardt ran—was, improbably, in the lead.
Up in the Fox booth, Michael Waltrip's brother Darrell, now a commentator, couldn't believe his baby brother's good fortune. Waltrip had to choke back tears, cheering Michael on to the win. Fans chanted "DEI"—for Dale Earnhardt Inc., owner of the three lead cars. (Correction Feb. 20: Earnhardt owned Waltrip's car and Dale Jr.'s car, but not the one he drove.) And there was "The Intimidator," selflessly fending off challengers as his son and employee rolled on to the checkered flag. When Earnhardt rammed the wall, in the final corner of the final lap (nudged from behind by a car hoping to catch the two leaders), it looked like no big deal.
At that moment, I thought NASCAR had achieved its greatest victory. The first race of the new TV contract was the best race I'd ever seen. It happened at Daytona, the sport's most legendary venue. There was a fiery, multi-car crash, always an audience-pleaser, and no one had been hurt. Darrell Waltrip crying in the booth as his brother crossed the finish line seemed the kind of human drama that wins millions of new fans in an instant.
But then Waltrip's smile faded and, squinting through his tears, he asked, "Is Dale OK? I hope Dale's OK." Hours later, confirmation came: Earnhardt died when he hit the wall. Last night, after watching a truly great race, I wasn't sure I should watch NASCAR at all.
Any fan, when he's honest, admits danger is part of NASCAR's appeal. My eyes grew wide with everyone else's as Tony Stewart flipped through the air. Wow, we're getting our money's worth, I thought. Oh, and I hope he's OK. Later, when I found out Earnhardt had died, in a much less ghoulish-looking crash, it made me feel terribly sad and terribly guilty. On a day that looked like NASCAR's greatest triumph, I wondered if the sport should just stop. Three drivers killed last year. The best driver ever killed yesterday.
The qualities that make NASCAR fun to watch are the same ones that make it so deadly. Many fans loved Dale Earnhardt specifically because he often slammed other cars, sending them into dangerous spins as he passed by unharmed. I admit I get a thrill from watching cars crash at 190 mph. I admit I was glad that NASCAR tweaked the rules to bring cars closer together, increasing tension but also the risk of a wreck. And I admit that I'll probably keep watching NASCAR, once I get yesterday out of my head.
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Reader Comments From The Fray:
I believe it was Patton who said that when he died, he wanted to be killed by the last bullet, fired during the last battle on the last day of the last war. Dale Earnhardt went down in a blaze of glory on the last turn, of the last lap, of the greatest race in Motorsport. He was a champion and he died like one. Any one of us could be killed in meaningless ways at any time. We could also grow old and die of cancer or Alzheimer's, reduced to shadows of our former selves. Or we could die in our prime, doing something we love. Dale died as a champion, his life celebrated by millions.
--Zero
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I felt guilty too as I watched replays of the crash that killed Dale Earnhardt. I'm not sure mine was the kind of guilt Seth Stevenson felt, or even a kind he would recognize. I felt guilty, basically, because while watching the replays I felt nothing: no horror, no shock, nothing. I thought, "this is NASCAR racing, and this is what's supposed to happen every so often. Earnhardt knew this; he just never expected it to happen to him."
I'll admit that's pretty cold. I didn't know Dale Earnhardt; the people who did seemed to feel that he was a pretty good guy, and they are surely entitled to grieve. I'm talking family and friends here, of course. The people making decisions as to how NASCAR is run are another story.
Stevenson says this very well: NASCAR differs from other sports and even from other auto racing organizations in that it promotes mortal, physical danger as a reason people should watch. It encourages dangerous racing tactics and invested much less time and effort in ensuring that high speed crashes are unlikely to result in fatalities than its Formula One or Indy car counterparts. And so, every so often, drivers get killed. Boxing aside, in any other sport that I can think of even one death would chill players, horrify fans, and bring about some effort to ensure that nothing like that ever happened again. NASCAR-affiliated racing organizations have had four deaths in the last 10 months.
This doesn't sound like tragedy to me, any more than some boob blowing off his hand with a firecracker on the Fourth of July sounds like tragedy. NASCAR could reduce the risks to its drivers fairly easily. The owners, promoters, sponsors--and drivers--who run NASCAR don't want to; it might lessen the sport's appeal to "the people who bring Budweiser coolers to the track."
Well, that is their choice, and many of their fans are happy with it. I just hope the people mourning for Dale Earnhardt aren't spending too much time asking the question, "why?" The answer to that one is about as obvious as a concrete wall
--Joseph Britt
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I take exception to the author's assumption that everyone likes the excitement of the accidents. I have been a race fan for four decades. While certainly the threat of an accident adds spice to the mix, the accident itself, to me, almost always ruins a race. I, for one, was upset about the big late-race pile up because it ruined the competition. It took out at least half a dozen cars that had a legitimate shot of winning. I would much prefer a super competitive action-free race than one marred by multiple smash ups. This is racing, not the demo derby. As for Earnhardt, it was an unfortunate accident but I do not believe it was the result of the new rules. He could have been bumped into the wall at 170 mph in a single-file freight train. The new rules cause big pile ups of cars running close together, not one or two cars going directly into walls. All four of the deaths in the last year have been the latter kind of accidents. This is true in almost all types of racing. The worst injuries occur when cars hit the wall at full speed. The impact is devastating. But, this is always a risk with speed. Spreading out the field and eliminating side-by-side racing does not eliminate this. The solution is better head and neck restraints to protect the drivers from impact.
--Mert
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