 AP World Wide Photo  Dale Earnhardt's stare, evident in this 1986 photo, is one reason he's called "The Intimidator" |
But that obsession also led to his death, as he fought to preserve the win for one of his drivers, Michael Waltrip, in the final turn of his 23rd Daytona 500.
"NASCAR has lost its greatest driver," said NASCAR Chairman of the Board Bill France, "and I personally have lost a great friend."
Earnhardt was born April 29, 1951 in Kannapolis, N.C., the son of NASCAR driver Ralph Earnhardt. His father won the NASCAR Sportsman Championship in 1956 and made 51 Winston Cup starts. Ralph Earnhardt died in 1973, two years before his son joined the Winston Cup circuit.
In 1979 Earnhardt won Rookie-of-the-Year honors, and a year later he became the first NASCAR driver to win Rookie of the Year and the Winston Cup series championship in consecutive years.
In 1984 Earnhardt began a successful 18-year association with Richard Childress Racing that continued into the 2001 season, as Earnhardt won six more Winston Cup championships (1986, '87, '90, '91, '93, '94).
In 1998 after 20 attempts, Earnhardt — who won more races than any driver at Daytona International Speedway — achieved the crowning win of his career with a Daytona 500 victory. Earnhardt added to his legacy in 1998 when NASCAR honored him and his father Ralph as two of the 50 Greatest Drivers in NASCAR history.
 AP World Wide Photo Dale Earnhardt and his son were more than family; they were teammates |
This year Dale Earnhardts, elder and younger, opened Daytona Speedweeks together as two members of a team in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, an annual sportscar race. The Earnhardts finished fourth overall, proving to any doubters that Dale and son were more than just stock-car drivers.
Intimidating to the end, Earnhardt spun fellow IROC driver and Indy Racing League star Eddie Cheever into the grass after Friday's IROC race, retaliating for a move by Cheever during the race that forced Earnhardt into the grass and cost him a chance at a win.
"IROC racing is supposed to be fun. I didn't think he would do that on purpose. That's why I'm not really mad," Earnhardt said.
"I just wanted to let him know I was a little upset and that I was still around," he said. "He got to do a couple of doughnuts. It didn't hurt anything."
Earnhardt will be remembered for being competitive and having fun on the track but also for being a great friend to other drivers, as he was to Dale Earnhardt Inc. driver Michael Waltrip.
Dale Earnhardt was 49. He is survived by wife Teresa, two sons, Kerry and Dale Jr. and two daughters, Kelley and Taylor Nicole.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Fallen
hero
Earnhardt's death at Daytona leaves a permanent void
February 18, 2001
FOXSports.com
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Dale Earnhardt is dead.
It doesn’t seem possible.
Not Dale Earnhardt.
Not the toughest guy in the toughest sport. Not the mustachioed macho man.
Not the guy who had Intimidated even death.
Not someone who is an entire sport by himself, bigger than what he created.
It just can’t be.
Tell me that huge American flag flying at half staff on the darkened infield at Daytona International Speedway is just a mistake.
 AP World Wide Photo Rescue workers surround Dale Earnhardt's Chevrolet after his crash, Earnhardt had to be cut from the wreck |
Everyone knows that racing cars at 200 mph costs lives. But no one ever believed that included Dale Earnhardt.
This was the guy who flipped his car upside down on the backstretch in the 1997 Daytona 500, crushing its roof. As he was being put in the ambulance, Earnhardt realized that the car had landed upright.
So as fans’ eyes focused on the ambulance, Earnhardt’s familiar black car was headed toward the pits, its driver scrunched down and peering out the narrow slit that used to be the windshield.
“I got in the ambulance,” he said later that day, “and when I looked back and saw the wheels were still on that thing, I told the guy in there, ‘Hey, see if it cranks.’ It cranked, so I said, ‘Give me my car back.’“
That was the real Dale Earnhardt, the one who seemingly could walk-or drive — away from anything.
But Sunday, in this 43rd Daytona 500, he couldn’t walk away from the ambulance. He was carried from it. Dead.
Never has there been a bigger death in sports. Never.
Never has there been a death that affects a sport more, for Dale Earnhardt was American stock car racing. He drove a Chevy, he was a homemade hero, and surely he invented apple pie.
Richard Petty may have created NASCAR, but it was Dale Earnhardt who drove it right off the television and into living rooms across the nation.
He was the one who took the image of greasy good ol’ boys and reshaped it into clean young marketed men.
And he did it all by himself, with NASCAR happy to ride right along on his back bumper.
The sport sold the Man in Black, it sold #3 decals, it sold Chevrolets.
Earnhardt collected millions of dollars from the sport, but the sport earned even more from him. It earned a spot in mainstream America and on Wall Street.
Now, what does the sport do without him?
Where does his sport go without him?
Who will replace him?
 AP World Wide Photo Dale Earnhardt was a ruthless competitor, but he was respected by the entire racing community |
Who could have both the hate and the respect of every peer?
The answers must be eerie for NASCAR to ponder. Now NASCAR has to question itself: Why hasn’t it done more to promote safety and less to promote itself?
Now it will have to find a way to keep going without its star, whose tough-guy image was both well-deserved and well-honed.
But those who knew Earnhardt knew that he had another side. Not necessary softer, but much more pleasant than the one that scowled from under a racing helmet.
Just two years ago in Indianapolis, at a sponsor golfing luncheon four days before the Brickyard 400, Earnhardt was actually happy to see a couple of familiar newspapermen.
It got him away from the fans for a while, and so he sat patiently answering questions, smiling, funny, gracious. Three days later, now back on his turf at the track, he would barely talk at all.
At Daytona this week, he seemed as determined as ever to win a record eighth championship, perhaps realizing that as he approached age 50 there might not be many more chances.
Some will say he died at what he loved doing, because that’s what they always say when a race car driver dies on a track.
That’s baloney. Dale Earnhardt may have loved racing, but he didn’t want to die from it. He must have thought about death, but surely not from racing.
Why else would he allow his son Dale Jr. to race? And to race against him.
Why else would he allow wife Teresa to own the car of Dale Jr.?
Racing can be such a cruel and ironic sport that you wonder if “sport” is indeed the right thing to call it.
It had been so forgiving to Earnhardt through all these years that you thought maybe it gave him a pass.
But not this time. Earnhardt was killed on the last turn on the last lap of what may be the last Daytona that will ever have much meaning.
He was the sport. He was that big.
Now he has left the sport in shambles, going without leaving a will for those remaining, or a road map of how to continue.
Some other links at Fox News.
http://www2.foxsports.com/obits/earnhardt/vandy1.sml
http://www2.foxsports.com/obits/earnhardt/schwalbe.sml
http://www2.foxsports.com/obits/earnhardt/waltrip.sml