Dale Earnhardt Sr. died two decades ago at the Daytona 500, a death that will forever remain ironic in my eyes.
The fact Earnhardt died Feb. 18, 2001, during an accident on his favorite race track is not ironic. In some respects, it’s fitting. The larger-than-life racing legend from Kannapolis, N.C., died doing the thing he loved most.
In some respects, we should all be so fortunate.
No, the irony that will never be lost on me is Earnhardt died doing something he seldom, if ever, had done before. The Intimidator died on the last lap of his last race while trying to help someone else win the Super Bowl of stock car racing.
At once and forever aged 49, Earnhardt crashed his black No. 3 Chevy in Turn 3 at Daytona International Speedway while running third.
I say running third, because the Man in Black was not racing at that point. He was blocking traffic for his own driver, race-winner Michael Waltrip, and his own son, Dale Jr., who finished second.
In terms of NASCAR crashes, despite the high speeds obtained on the 2.5-mile track with 31-degree banked turns, it seemed on live television like an innocuous crash.
Earnhardt, driving defensively for the first time in his record-breaking career, bumped with Sterling Marlin and then collided with Ken Schrader, going head-on into the concrete wall.
In fact, as TV stayed with the winning finish, and broadcaster Darrell Waltrip celebrated his younger brother’s win, I was not overly concerned. Growing up in the south a NASCAR fan, I had seen far worse crashes with minimal, or zero, injuries.
A crash earlier in the race involving Tony Stewart had appeared much more violent and he walked away from it.
The chilling fear began when Darrell Waltrip, still emotional from his little brother’s win, stared back into Turn 3 and said, “I hope Dale’s OK. I guess he’s all right, isn’t he?”
An investigation into the crash revealed Earnhardt’s car hit the concrete wall at 160 mph and immediately decelerated by more than 40 miles per hour. Schrader, the longtime friend and rival of Earnhardt, was the first to reach the No. 3 car. When he took down the netting and saw blood everywhere, he signaled to safety officials to hurry.
But The Intimidator was unconscious and was already gone, though medical officials tried heroic efforts to revive him.
At 5:16 p.m., Earnhardt was pronounced dead at the nearby Halifax Medical Center from a fatal skull fracture, literally forever changing the sport of stock car racing.
Leaders of the sport for years had pushed for greater safety measures, many of them resisted by their seven-time Winston Cup champion, who raced to his death still using an open-face helmet, refusing to wear the HANS device he believed to be uncomfortable. He called it, “a damn noose.”
The Intimidator wanted little of it, despite the fact three NASCAR drivers had recently been killed in crashes, including Adam Petty, the 19-year-old grandson of The King, Richard Petty. Earnhardt did see the benefit of the softer, safer barriers on walls, which have now become commonplace at tracks around the country.
But Earnhardt spent a quarter of century in NASCAR with simple goals. Go fast and win races, regardless of who may be in the way, including the night race in 1999 at Bristol’s famed half-mile bullring when he spun out Terry Labonte on the last lap to get the checkered flag.
The 140,000 race fans at Bristol actually booed lustily as he climbed out of his car on victory lane. Celebrating his win, he said “I didn’t mean to turn (Labonte) around, I just wanted to rattle his cage.”
His smirk afterward at an angry Rusty Wallace, who he had spun out earlier in the evening, told a different story. Earnhardt was about one thing — winning.
At one point in his career, a reporter asked Earnhardt about rumors NASCAR was planning measures to slow the cars down, adding features to make races safer.
“If you’re not a race driver, stay the hell home. Don’t come here and grumble about going too fast. Get the hell out of the race car if you’ve got feathers on your legs and butt. Put a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won’t climb up and eat that candy ass,” he growled.
Perhaps the man other drivers and teams called “Ironhead” had mellowed in his later years, watching Dale Jr. come into the sport and owning his own Dale Earnhardt Inc. race team, including driver Michael Waltrip.
Perhaps Earnhardt realized there was more to life, and to racing, then just single-mindedly chasing checkered flags. Perhaps, like most of us as we age, he was able to step back and see the bigger picture, to gain a broader perspective.
I would like to think he was filled with pride on that last lap at Daytona two decades ago, watching Waltrip and Junior racing to the finish. He certainly drove like a proud owner and dad on that final lap, doing all he could to ensure one of them won the race.
But I would also like to think that if there had been no crash, Earnhardt would have been back on the track the following weekend with one goal in mind.
Win.
(The 2021 Daytona 500 is scheduled for this afternoon at 2:30 p.m. on Fox. At noon today, ESPN will air, “E60 Presents – Intimidator: The Lasting Legacy of Dale Earnhardt.”)
