Daytona, 10 Years Later: Earnhardt's Presence Remains

Daytona International Speedway’s winningest driver is nearly seven years gone now. Yet, it seems like yesterday that an ominous black Chevrolet prowled its way around the high banks, waiting to pounce on another position, another point. Auto racing is a game — a sport — but was deadly serious to Dale Earnhardt. You could see that in the crooked grin, in the flashing blue eyes, in every calculated move of his racecar.

Earnhardt was the driver that attracted me to NASCAR, made me sit up and take notice. Made me see racing for the chess game that it can be when a driver chooses the strategy needed to pick up the next position and execute it so perfectly. So perfect, in fact, that the other driver never has a chance. Not that Earnhardt was afraid to use a little fender to get the task accomplished, but somehow, he could make you think it was “just racin’” when he did.

Ten years ago this week, Earnhardt won the Daytona 500 after 20 years of heartbreak and near misses that, had they been written as fiction, would have gotten the author fired. Earnhardt, the twilight of his career squarely in the front windshield, looked like a kid in a candy store as he celebrated on that overcast Sunday — along with every crewman along pit road. He had a lot to be proud of: Two sons working their way through the racing ranks, a daughter already helping her brother shape his career and, finally, the trophy that had eluded him for so many years, in so many ways.

A scant three years later we lost that mischievous, little boy grin; that talent, that authority. It was at once fitting and cruel that it should happen at Daytona, the track that had afforded Earnhardt such success and provided such despair. Although the cars will never again pour through turn four like so much quicksilver with Earnhardt at point, neither will they be completely without his presence. 

The wake of Earnhardt’s death brought a wave of positive changes to NASCAR. Head and neck restraints were mandated as higher speeds ushered in an increase in basilar skull fractures. Earnhardt was one of five NASCAR and ARCA drivers killed or seriously injured from that type of injury in the span of two seasons. Research and development of the SAFER barrier was ramped up as well, with concrete walls in critical areas of the track becoming things of the past while full-faced helmets became standard.

The Earnhardt legacy is also strong in his lineage. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is a little cleaner on the track — a little less aggressive — but as fine a driver on the plate tracks as his father was. He followed the example, though not the words, of his father, forging his own path in a sport that is not his father’s style NASCAR anymore. Yes, what Dale Earnhardt gave to the sport is everywhere.

It’s hard not to ask “what if,” because it’s hard to believe that NASCAR would be the same if the Intimidator had been around to see — and to criticize and to help guide — the last seven seasons. And the questions are huge: What would the Car of, well, Today look and race like had Earnhardt’s input been available. Other questions are of a smaller scope: Where, for example, would Kenny Wallace’s career be today had Earnhardt been calling the shots for his organization after Steve Park’s near-fatal accident?

What so many would give to have those answers.

But the winningest driver at Daytona is nearly seven years gone now, and the questions cannot be answered.  One voice will always be silent, one engine still, while those in the garage toil on as always. There will never be a time, though, that part of the collective soul of NASCAR doesn’t see a bit of Dale Earnhardt there; in the nine-foot statue outside Daytona USA (and didn’t he seem nine feet tall sometimes?), in the scream of the engines and in the tailwind in the tri-oval pushing a car home. 

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