It doesn’t seem possible. I mean, this is the man who faded out at Talladega. This is the man who decapitated a seagull at Daytona. This is the man who has gone end-over-end on the super speedways and walked away. Dammit, it just ain’t right.
I watched that race. Like many of you, I saw the wreck and thought it wasn’t that bad. Just a hard hit. He’ll be sore tomorrow, but he’ll get 'em next week.
Two hours later, I’m sitting here at the computer and the tv behind me announces his death. I’ve listened to the reports since then and have searched the web for additional information. I just can’t believe it.
NASCAR has truly lost it’s best driver. And we have lost an icon.
I hope NASCAR retires the 3 out of respect for the man who accomplished so much for the sport.
I first heard about Dale Earnhardt’s death on the 11 PM local news. I’m still in shock from it too, even though I wasn’t a big fan. I was struck by the diversity and number of fans they showed gathering in Welcome, NC. Many of them were in tears, crying as though they had just lost a close relative. Geez, I can even remember when I was tutoring for a 6th grade class noticing little “#3” patches sewn onto some of the kids’ bookbags.
They’ve certainly lost a hero and a role model. We’ll miss you Dale.
Um, I realize this thread is in tribute to Dale and hate to denegrate it, but some ass in the Pit has begun a thread that I feel deserves some answers.
Perhaps the race fans who will truly miss Dale’s influence could shoot on over there and follow the tradition of the Intimidator. This guy deserves what he gets.
I know I’m not adding much to what’s already been said; but I think I’ll feel better if I say it anyway. Back in about 2nd or 3rd grade I worshipped Dale Earnhardt. No one else back then cared about NASCAR so the fact that I so admired him was my thing. It was what I did. Ask a classmate what’s unique about Danny, and they’d say “He likes car racing and Dale Earhardt a lot.” Eventually I branched out into other areas of interest, and stopped caring, really, about car racing at all. I just now read about the death, and I must say it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m kind of surprised at myself. I’m the person that always critisizes celebrity worship, and thinks that the nation needs to stop finding things to have a community mourning over. I think I’m going to have to tone down that kind of talk in the future. I don’t care whether he’s earned it or not, Dale Earnhardt will be my hero forever. I’ll get over this and probably fairly quickly, but right now, something is really missing in me. #3
I was so upset that I wasn’t going to be able to watch today since I had to work, that I almost thought about having my husband (who doesn’t care for racing) tape it for me.
I have mixed emotions about not being able to see it now.
I think I want to see it for myself so it is a touch more believeble, but I don’t want to see it for the obvious reason.
I will have a lot of phone calling to do tomorrow to friends to see how they are dealing.
I can’t begin to imagine what Dales fellow racers are feeling tonite.
I only became a NASCAR fan a few years ago, when a girl I was dating dragged me to a local stock car race. Since then, I’ve come to appreciate everything that makes NASCAR so popular. The power, the excitement, the speed, and the fact that nearly all drivers from the local level to the Winston Cup Series are accessible, friendly, and down-to-earth. Earnhardt was all of that. I never met him, but the few people I ran into who had had nothing but good things to say about him. It’s little consolation, but I think it is a fitting tribute to the man that he died doing what he loved, while protecting his teammate’s victory.
The best quote I’ve come across about Earnhardt’s death was on the ESPN site this morning: “Dale Earnhardt represented everything that stock car racing used to be and has become. And, as the NASCAR family grieves this week, they all know more than a champion racer died Sunday. Their collective heart stopped beating.”
I haven’t sat down and actually watched a NASCAR race in sometime. When I flicked it on to see who it was going, I saw my favorite driver, Kenny Schrader leading the race. This is one of the nicest guys in racing and the poor guy hasn’t won in ten years and here he is leading the Daytona 500! So I sat down and watched. I watched in amazement after everyone survived that huge pile up. I watched Michael Waltrip win his first race and was happy for him.
When I saw Kenny Schrader’s M&M car crushed into the wall by the black 3 I was pissed, but quickly learned it wasn’t Earnhardt’s fault. I knew Earnhardt had hit hard but I was thinking broken bones maybe. Kenny looked awfully upset after the race.
It would have been a great ending to this race if not for that last crash. But now Michael Waltrip has tragedy to go along with his first victory. I feel so bad for him, for Earnhardt Jr., for Kenny Schrader, for all the drivers, wives, moms, and fans.
It’s just not going to be Winston Cup without that black 3 car out there.
I agree with xizor, Dale was doing his damnest to give Michael his turn in Victory Lane. He was blocking and playing defense in those last 13 laps or so. I saw the crash in the background as the checkered flag was about to come down, thought it was a crying shame those two guys got so close and wrecked. Then I saw the replay. The crash at lap 147 was picture perfect for the way these cars are designed to perform in a crash. Energy is dissipated over time, slowing the momentum and preventing injust to the driver. When you have a race car go nose first into the wall, there is virtually nothing that could be done. P will always equal Mv. When v goes from 180 to zero for the car, the human body is still going 180 (or 100, or even 55, whatever the impact speed was). That is very bad. Humans cannot handle that force. Never could, never will.
I’m not a huge Earnhart Sr. fan myself, but I respected the hell out of him. I don’t cry, but I cried last night.
I was at the race and saw it happen. The crash didn’t really look that bad. After the race, nobody really knew what happened. As we were walking to our car, people were muttering about how he still wasn’t out of the car yet, and I knew something was very wrong. Though to tell you the truth, I was more concerned about Tony Stewart (the driver that flipped in the big wreck) because that crash happened right in front of me and looked much worse. I saw the ambulance transporting Earnhart to the hospital go by. I didn’t know until after we got home.
I hated Earnhart, but I liked it that way. He was the villain, the man in black, I could always root against. He was my Dad’s favorite driver. I remember a few years ago when Earnhart rolled his car in the 500, taped it up, and went back into the race. He seemed indestructible. It’s all very sad.
My dad worked for GM for 43 years. His only hobby outside of work was NASCAR. Earnhardt was his favorite driver. When Dad retired last summer, NASCAR was the only entertainment he had left. We went to the PIR (Phoenix International Raceway) race last November - one of the very last races of the season, so one of the very last races Earnhardt ran. Our seats were right in front of the pits - right in front of Earnhardt’s crew. Dad had his scanner, and spent the whole race updating us on what Earnhardt had to say to his crew. It was fun.
I didn’t watch yesterday’s race. When I got to my folks’ house, Dad was wearing one of his Intimidator t-shirts and told me that Dale was in a bad wreck at the end of the race. We sat down and watched a movie on tape - when the movie ended and we shut off the VCR, the news was announcing Earnhardt’s death. Five minutes later, Dad went in and changed his t-shirt. He’ll never wear anything with the “3” on it again. I’ve already wept several times at work this morning about the whole thing.
(BTW - oddly enough, Earnhardt didn’t own his own car, though he did Waltrip’s and his son’s. Dale, Sr still drove for Richard Childress, who’d been his owner for a very long time.)
I heard on ESPN radio this morning that they’re talking about retiring his number. I also heard speculation about renaming the Daytona 500 the Dale Earnhardt Memorial. I know that a lot of people only watched NASCAR to see Dale.
We’ve got our tickets to PIR again this year. I suppose we’ll root for Dale, Jr. But it just won’t be the same.
Oh boy… I, like many others, loved to hate Dale while rooting for others. I, too, respected him deeply. I stopped watching racing for a season or so, but still caught him on the Outdoors/Hunting shows, where he showed us some of his other skills and you got to learn a little more about what a great guy he was. You also got to see him get as excited as a kid whenever he got a kill.
I can’t help thinking that from now on, when I hear thunder, I’ll think of old Dale firing up his bad-ass Chevy in the sky…
They announced on our local news today that one of our funneral homes is holding a memorial service for him.
I think that is pretty cool of them, I’ve never seen it happen around here before, not even for Princess Di.
How bout that Dale, you out rank a princess in the Quad Citites.
And I did end up seeing the accident on the news all morning. It looked like a typical eat the wall kind of thing. What in the hell went wrong?
As a central Floridian NASCAR is a big part of our culture down here. I have never approved of the sport myself, but when I went to Red Lobster last night and heard he had died on the TV, I was shocked. I feel so bad for his family and all of his fans who run around sporting his number on their cars. I didn’t think something like this would effect me as strongly as it has. It must be because it surrounds me on a daily basis here in Orlando. I hope everyone prays for his family while they go through this rough time.
From what I could tell, though this is just from watching the replays (and I haven’t heard much today. I haven’t wanted to go look yet. It’s just something I’m not quite ready for at the moment), it looked like Marlin did a little nudge that got him out of control. With the tight racing between Marlin, Earnhardt and Schader (and I think Wallace was in that mix, too, but don’t quote me on that), a little nudge was all disaster needed to come out from hiding beneath the asphalt. I don’t know if Dale even had time to turn the wheel to get her sideways before he hit the wall. I don’t think he did. And any head on collision like that is going to be worse than something like Stewart went through earlier that day, because of the sudden stop. Stewart had a chance to roll of the energy. Earnhardt didn’t have a chance for anything.
I hope this is what you were asking Kricket, and I didn’t answer a wrong question. If I didn’t get it right, I’m sorry. The brain just still isn’t connecting the way it should today. I’m still in shock, denial, whatever. I just wish I could stop thinking about it. But I’m having a really hard time doing just that.
