A Race Fan’s Reflections

Nobody would have ever mistaken me for a
Dale Earnhardt fan. I was like every other typical Anti-Earnhardt fan. I
screamed at him, bitched at him and generally cussed him out every time he
showed even the smallest amount of disrespect for MY man. I was as mad as anyone
at him when he knocked Terry out of the way enroute to victory at Bristol and
laughed myself silly when Jeremy pulled an "Earnhardt" on Dale at
Pocono. Of course, as we all know, every time Dale strapped himself into that
damn black #3 car we all knew HE thought he owned the track. And 76 times over
the last 25 years he proved us right. Seven times he hoisted the championship
trophy and irritated the hell out of half the NASCAR fans of the country and he
made the other half giddy with joy.

I always joked with the Earhardt fans at
work that the best day at the track were the days when Earnhardts’ car was being
towed back the pits. I kidded Earnhardt fans that the best improvement that
could be made to the #3 car was usually done with the outside wall. My old
supervisor, a DIE-HARD Earnhardt fan, and I always jabbed at each other and a
few days ago I bet him five dollars that Bill would finish in front of Dale. Not
one week ago I kidded one of the guys who always wore a tattered black #3 hat
about how I could never wear a hat that looked that bad, especially if it had
that 3 on it. He just laughed and said we would see after Sundays’ race.

I was at work when I heard the news, just
as I had been when I heard that Adam had been taken from us. I couldn’t believe
it and I immediately tried to log onto nascar.com to see that someone was just
pulling my leg. When I couldn’t connect to nascar.com I began to realize it
might be true. I typed in www.jayski.com and when that page loaded I felt like I
had been punched in the stomach.

I don’t have the heart to joke anymore.
Never, at any time did I ever seriously mean that I wanted to see Dale crash. I
don’t like crashes. A lump rises in my throat when I see one, especially if it
looks rather serious and I don’t start breathing easier again until I see all
drivers climb from their wrecked cars. When Adam hit the wall in last years’
Busch race at Daytona and was stumbling around outside the car I was praying
they would just lay him down and get him to the care center because I could tell
he was hurt. When Dale and Bill slammed the wall at Dega a couple of years ago I
was almost grief stricken because I thought we had lost both of them. I was very
relieved and even got a small laugh out the whole thing when Dale walked out of
the care center and bitched about the fact that half his mustache had been
burned off in the crash. He did look kind of silly with only half his signature
mustache.

Yesterday, after I got home from work, I
rewound the tape and watched, for the fourth time in nine months, a tragedy
unfold on the track that I was hoping I would never see again. I saw the #3 car
get a little loose and slam head-on into the fourth turn wall. I should have
been thrilled beyond belief that Mikey was actually going to win his first race
and it was going to be the Daytona 500. Junior was pushing him along and seemed
to be making no effort whatsoever to pass and try to steal his thunder. But,
when Dale didn’t show up in victory lane to give Mike the hug you knew was going
to come, you knew it really was true. I cried as I watched Mikey in victory lane
crying tears of joy, for his first win, talking to his older brother on the
headset and thanking everyone under sun and mostly his boss. I cried because I
already knew that Mikeys’ joy was going to turn to sheer heartbreak within the
next hour or so.

As I watched the accident unfold it was
quite apparent that there was no real blame to be placed anywhere. Some were
saying that Dale was holding Kenny and Marlin off so his boys could sprint to
the checkers by themselves. This may have been the case but, I also think that
he was sandwiched between them because they had cars every bit as fast as his
and they were racing for the checkers as hard as he was. Which is exactly what
Dale would have expected and would have wanted. Cars get squirrelly at Daytona
at 180+ mph and when these guys race closer together than you and I park at the
supermarket, things are going to happen. Cars get loose and bump into each
other. Unfortunately when cars bump into each other at these speeds sometimes
they crash.

As the reality of the situation sank in
yesterday afternoon I knew what kind of reaction was going to be showing up on
the newsgroups and message boards around the internet and I was not looking
forward to seeing it. I knew that there was going to be a lot of finger pointing
and a lot of it was going to be directed squarely at Marlin. I’ve already read
one post at one site where the writer said, "THIS DIDNT HAVE TO HAPPEN IF
STERLING MARLIN WOULDNT HAVE GOTTEN GREEDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i blame all of this on
him." I knew this was going to happen and it saddens me to see it. Dale
would never have condoned this kind of behavior from anyone, especially his own
fans. I would almost believe that Dale is looking down on Sterling right now and
telling him, "Keep your head up buddy. You won the Big Race one more time
than I did and it was an honor to race against you. Win one for me next
week."

Every NASCAR fan believed that Dale was
invincible and was going to be terrorizing other drivers on the track for the
next five or six or twenty years. And all of us Anti-Earnhardt fans were going
to be cussing him and yelling at him every single lap of the way. Dale was just
too damn mean to die. We’re talking about a man who rolled his car at Daytona,
climbed out of the ambulance when he saw the tires were still on it, climbed
back into that beat up black 3 car and drove off. He just couldn’t be killed.
I’m sure as the cars slid off the track yesterday, we all expected Dale to haul
himself out of the car and shoot the breeze with Kenny until the safety crews
got there. Sadly, we’ve all been proven wrong.

Now we’re left to ponder the question
that, if Dale can be taken from us like this, can’t anyone? Dale was IronHead.
He was the one that broke his sternum and then qualified his car at the
Brickyard one week later. We’ve seen many drivers climb behind the wheel of a
Cup car while in pain from injuries and do some pretty amazing things. When cars
crash, we expect to see them climb out and throw their helmets at the window and
get mad when it doesn’t go in. But now we’ve seen the Invincible One not climb
out of his car. Now we know that this sport that we have come to know and love
is more dangerous than we could have imagined and it will scare me to see these
drivers climb back in, knowing that they may not climb out. I gravitated away
from open wheel fandom because I was tired of seeing all those great, young guys
getting killed and maimed because of the very nature of their cars. Now it has
been driven home to me in the last nine months that if you watch enough of any
kind of racing, you will watch great people die. The next time Gordon hits the
wall, I hope the fans have enough sense to stop and think for a second before
they start cheering that fact that he is out of another race. It’s not funny
anymore.

As for what we’re supposed to do now, I
think I know the answer. Dale would not want me, or any other NASCAR fan to turn
our backs and walk away from the sport that he spent most of his life building.
NASCAR is what it is because of him, and Richard, and Lee, and Bill and any
number of other drivers and officials. He would want us to be out there
screaming and hollering for our favorite drivers and remember that if he were
there, he’d kick all their butts. We all wish it could be so again.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Dales’
family, the entire DEI organization and to all of the Earnhardt fans around the
world. We’ve all lost a truly great man and it will a long time before anyone
will come along and that will inspire us to love him or hate him as much as Dale
did. Junior, Mikey and Steve, when you come back I’ll be solidly in your corners
pulling for you as I always have. Well, as long as you come in behind Elliott
I’ll be pulling for you.

Drive on Dale. We’ll miss you.