A crash and a deadly reality

Dale Earnhardt’s loss still felt 10 years after his death

Associated Press

After 462 races, a losing streak that had spanned 16 years, Michael Waltrip’s first trip to Victory Lane — at the Daytona 500 — should have been the happiest moment of his life.

It was, for 15 minutes.

Then Ken Schrader stopped by to speak privately to Waltrip. Schrader leaned in and whispered the news that brought the party to a crashing halt: The accident on the last lap was bad, and Dale Earnhardt was in trouble.

The smile faded from Waltrip’s face, the light in his eyes darkened, and he spent the next few hours simply going through the motions of a victory celebration.

When it was time for the customary champagne toast, he instead headed to his motorhome alone with his wife.

“I said to her, ‘He’s going to be OK, right?”’ Waltrip recalled. “I was just hoping she was going to say he’s hurt really bad.

“And she said, ‘No, he’s dead.”’

Earnhardt was the face of American racing. His death — in a crash that insiders viewed as rather routine — stunned NASCAR, raising questions about mortality, safety and moving on.

The 10-year anniversary of Earnhardt’s fatal accident is today. The typical excitement and optimism that comes with each new year have been overshadowed by memories of The Intimidator, whose death still defines NASCAR and those he left behind.

There’s Dale Earnhardt Jr., the prodigal son forced out of his father’s shadow. Savvy marketing had made the introverted and sometimes socially awkward kid a star, but it didn’t prepare him for the crush of attention from his father’s adoring fan base. He’s been stoic in facing the anniversary questions, but it’s clear he wants everyone to move on.

Richard Childress, the team owner who never wanted to return to a race track after the loss of his best friend, has tried to block the memories of that day. The topic still makes him uncomfortable, though he understands the public interest that still accompanies Earnhardt.

Earnhardt’s death remains a raw, open wound. No matter the approach to the anniversary, the reality is the same: Everything changed the day Earnhardt died — for the people who loved him and for the sport he left behind — and it has taken every bit of the last decade to recover.

Dale Jr. was 26, starting his second full season at NASCAR’s highest level, when his father was killed. Although he’d won two championships in NASCAR’s second-tier series, two 2000 Cup races as a rookie with Dale Earnhardt Inc., and was being marketed like a rock star by Budweiser, he was very much under his father’s thumb.

Big E expected a lot of Junior. Although there was always a father’s love, he wasn’t exactly easy on his namesake. Life as the son of the seven-time champion was a constant lesson in where to go, what to do and how to be more professional.

All of a sudden Junior had to figure it out on his own.

As NASCAR rolled into Rockingham, N.C., five days after Earnhardt’s death, his son wanted to be anywhere but there.

“After that happened, I never wanted to see another race track or race car again. We went to Rockingham, and I went because I felt responsible to be there,” he said.

When the green flag fell, Earnhardt Jr. crashed before finishing even a single lap.

“I was embarrassed. It was embarrassing because it was on television and in front of all the fans,” he said. “But I really had no interest in being there.”

It took him about a week to accept his new life and its tremendous responsibilities. “I got to thinking, ‘Well, what else am I going to do? My dad gave me this opportunity, and I would be a fool to squander it,”’ he recalled.

Childress lost all interest in racing in the hours after Earnhardt’s accident. He fielded cars for six of Earnhardt’s seven championships, and together they built Richard Childress Racing into one of NASCAR’s top teams.

But Childress lost much more than an employee that sunny Sunday. He lost his best friend.

The 65-year-old doesn’t enjoy talking about his loss, and on many occasions, offers only the briefest of answers. He’s talked a bit more freely — but never comfortably — in the month leading up to the anniversary.

“I have personally tried to totally block [the day] out of my mind. When I get asked a question, it deserves an answer, and I’ll answer it as well as I can,” he said. “But what gets me through is remembering all the good times, the great times, the fun times I had with Dale Earnhardt.”

Those memories are what kept Childress going when it seemed as if there were no point in continuing. Through a 36-hour period, those who know him best say it was the closest he ever came to quitting. He told his wife the night of the accident he was done, he wouldn’t be taking his cars back to the track, and he felt that way all the next day, too.

Come Tuesday, alone on a dock at then-NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr.’s house, he remembered a specific conversation with Earnhardt that renewed his spirit. The two had been on a hunting trip together in New Mexico, riding horses up a mountain when Earnhardt’s horse slipped on ice and back into Childress.

They both would have tumbled off the mountain if trees below had not caught them.

“We got back to camp that night and naturally Dale blamed me for pulling his horse off the mountain,” Childress recalled. “We were having a cocktail around the fireplace, and I told him, ‘You know, if I’d been killed on that mountain today, you would have had to race Phoenix.’

“We looked at each other and he said, ‘If it ever happens to me, you better race.’ That made it a lot easier.”

What made the 2001 Daytona 500 so difficult: Earnhardt died blocking traffic for his drivers. With Waltrip and Earnhardt Jr. out front in the final laps, Earnhardt had switched from offense to defense as the third-place driver, circling the track trying to protect a Dale Earnhardt Inc. win.

It created feelings of survivor’s guilt for Waltrip.

“People would say Dale died blocking for you and Junior, or even worse, they’d say Dale died blocking for you. And that’s basically blaming me,” Waltrip said.

But Waltrip, who didn’t watch a replay of the race until this past year, knows it’s untrue. He and Earnhardt Jr. had such a cushion over the field as they headed to the checkered flag, Waltrip is convinced Earnhardt was only trying to preserve his own finish.

“Dale knew it was over. He knew the only one that could beat us at that point was him,” Waltrip said, figuring Earnhardt was only thinking of a way to get past his two DEI drivers, or to hold on for third.

Waltrip and Earnhardt Jr. did cross the finish line 1-2 in what should have been a crowning moment for DEI. It was instead the beginning of the end.

Wins for DEI came harder and harder. Then came an ill-fated crew swap between Earnhardt Jr. and Waltrip in 2005, and the tension between Earnhardt and his stepmother began to grow to an irreparable level.

Earnhardt Jr. decided in early 2007 that he’d leave DEI at the end of the year, an easy but emotional decision because of the ripple effects it would have on his father’s race team.

The family joined briefly last May for Earnhardt’s induction into the NASCAR Hall of Fame, presenting a united front of The Intimidator’s four children and Teresa. It was a rare appearance together for Earnhardt Jr. and his stepmother, and left everyone wondering what could have been.

There was really no need to wonder.

“If [Earnhardt] was here, I’m pretty sure we’d all still be together,” his sister, Kelley Earnhardt, said. “Dale Jr. would have never left DEI.”

There’s a sense that the Earnhardt insiders just want to get through this weekend, honor Earnhardt’s legacy, and get back on with the lives they’ve been leading since Feb. 18, 2001.

The one thing that’s certain is that nobody involved is the same person they were on that bright, sunny Sunday morning before Earnhardt and the rest of the field climbed into their cars for the Great American Race.