NASCAR organization information
Dale Earnhardt, Sr.
His Life and Death:
Jimmie Johnson NASCAR Hall of Fame
Dale Earnhardt, Sr. Jeff Gordon History of NASCAR
Ralph Dale Earnhardt, Sr. (April 29, 1951 – February 18, 2001)
was an American NASCAR driver. He was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, right
outside of Charlotte to Ralph Lee Earnhardt and Martha Coleman. He died in a
racing accident in turn four on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.
DALE EARNHARDT MOST
POPULAR DRIVER 2001 NASCAR LIMITED EDITION WALL CLOCK shown above.
Earnhardt grew up in a racing family. His father, Ralph, died of a heart attack
while working on his race car in 1973. Dale Earnhardt began with his racing
career two years later, and by 1979 he had won the Winston Cup Rookie of the
Year award. The very next year, he won his first Winston Cup title to become the
only driver thus far to win rookie of the year and Winston title in back-to-back
years. For his aggressive driving style, Earnhardt quickly won the nickname "The
Intimidator." He is generally credited with authorship of the quotation "second
place is the first loser." His aggressiveness was always businesslike and in the
service of competitive success, however; he was never vindictive or
purposelessly aggressive on the track.
During his career, Earnhardt won the NASCAR Championship seven times('80, '86,
'87, '90, '91, '93 and '94), tying the record of the legendary Richard Petty.
Additionally, his prize winnings totaled more than $42 million. In addition to a
hard-charging racing style, Earnhardt was known for being excellent at drafting,
the phenomenon where two cars lined up together go faster than one car alone.
Earnhardt discovered "side-drafting", but to many people this "side-drafting"
was just a joke till Earnhardt started to win a lot of Super Speedway wins.
Earnhardt was also known for his dominance at restrictor plate racing.
Restrictor plates are used at two superspeedways, Daytona and Talladega, where
drafting also plays a large role in who wins — subsequently Dale Earnhardt and
the teams he had worked with all do very well at those tracks. Earnhardt himself
had 9 wins at Talladega alone. He won 76 cup point races overall, sixth on the
all-time list.
Although he had won at Daytona many times in many different races--including six
Budweiser Shootouts, two Pepsi 400s, twelve Gatorade Twin 125s (including ten in
a row from 1990 through 1999) and six IROC races--it took him until 1998 to win
the Daytona 500, on his twentieth try.
Dale drove the #3 car for most of his career, spanning the early 1980s until his
unfortunate passing in 2001. As of 2005, no other Nextel Cup race car has used
this number, and NASCAR has considered officially retiring it.
In 1981, after a successful two and a half year stint with car owner Rod
Osterlund, winning the 1980 championship, Osterlund sold his team to J. D.
Stacy. Earnhardt never liked Stacy, and when independent driver Richard
Childress was given an offer to retire and let Earnhardt take over his #3 car,
complete with Earnhardt's Wrangler Jeans sponsorship, Childress gave up his ride
to field cars for Earnhardt. That partnership won 69 of Earnhardt's 76 races.
While Earnhardt and Childress decided to split after the 1981 season (Earnhardt
drove for Walter "Bud" Moore, and Childress hired Ricky Rudd), they returned for
1984, and created one of the most successful teams in motorsports.
The #3 was sponsored by Wrangler Jeans, and later by Goodwrench. Earnhardt drove
a Chevrolet model, that moved through the decades as a Lumina and later a Monte
Carlo. The sinister looking all-black Goodwrench Chevrolet became the best-known
car driven by Earnhardt. Although Earnhardt eventually formed his own racing
outfit--Dale Earnhardt Incorporated (DEI)--his loyalty to and friendship with
Richard Childress kept aligned with RCR as a driver.
Dale Earnhardt in NASCAR was a very polarizing figure. People either loved him
or hated him, but he was arguably one of the most popular drivers in the sport.
Earnhardt's death drew a considerable reaction from the nation, NASCAR, and of
course grief-stricken fans. It is remarkable, and almost symbolic, that his son,
Dale Jr., is still officially marked as "Earnhardt Jr." on the ticker, even
though there is no longer a need to distinguish between father and son on the
racetrack.
Earnhardt kept his private life generally private. He enjoyed the company of his
family, being in the outdoors, hunting and fishing, and actively working his
farm in Kannapolis, riding a tractor instead of a racecar. In contrast with his
image as a hardnosed competitor on the track, off the track he was known to his
friends as someone who was charitable and generous, but kept that side of
himself private from the rest of the world.
At the time of his death he was survived by
his third wife Teresa and four children: Son Kerry (from his first marriage to Latane Brown), Kelley, Dale Jr. (both from his second marriage to Brenda Gee),
and daughter Taylor (from his third marriage). Kerry and Dale Jr. are both
NASCAR drivers. Dale Jr. finished second when his father died at the 2001
Daytona 500. The winner of that race, Michael Waltrip, was one of Dale's closest
friends, and drove for DEI.
Three weeks after Earnhardt's death, young California driver Kevin Harvick,
hired to replace him in the now-renumbered and repainted #29 GM Goodwrench
Service Plus Chevrolet, scored a win at Atlanta. The Fox television
commentators' call of the final lap of the 2001 Golden Corral 500, with Harvick
defeating Jeff Gordon by .006 seconds, and the images of Earnhardt's longtime
fueler, Danny "Chocolate" Myers crying after the victory, are among some of the
most memorable moments in recent motorsports history. Dale Earnhardt Jr. scored
an emotional victory in the Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway on July
7, 2001. In 2004, Dale Earnhardt's life story was made into a television movie
by ESPN titled, 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story.
Earnhardt has a street in his hometown of Kannapolis named after him. Dale
Earnhardt Boulevard (originally Earnhardt Road) is marked as Exit 60 off of
Interstate 85, northeast of Charlotte. A road between Kannapolis and
Mooresville, along which is the headquarters of DEI, has been given the
designation State Road 3 by the North Carolina Department of Transportation. In
addition, Exit 73 off of Interstate 35W, one of the entrances to Texas Motor
Speedway, is named "Dale Earnhardt Way".
In 2000, the Piedmont Boll Weevils minor league baseball team was renamed to the
Kannapolis Intimidators after Earnhardt purchased a share in the team's
ownership.
Controversy over cause of death
At a news conference five days after the fatal crash, NASCAR officials announced
that a seat belt had broken in Earnhardt's car. Daytona International Speedway
physician Dr. Steve Bohannon said he thought the faulty belt had allowed
Earnhardt's chin to strike the steering wheel, killing him. The manufacturers of
seat belts for NASCAR, Simpson Race Products of Charlotte, North Carolina,
maintained that the belt had failed because it had been installed in an
unapproved fashion in order to increase Earnhardt's comfort, an allegation that
had been supported by some who were familiar with the situation. Certainly,
being held responsible for the death of NASCAR's most popular driver was not a
desirable prospect for Simpson. On the other hand, NASCAR also did not wish to
be seen as negligent in not requiring adequate head and neck restraint for
drivers in the wake of five fatal accidents in the past 11 months, including
popular drivers Kenny Irwin, Jr., Tony Roper, and Adam Petty, grandson of
NASCAR's most legendary driver, Richard Petty. As well, they did soon made it a
requirement to wear full faced helmets (although Earnhardt had been one of the
very few to still use an open face helmet).
The Orlando Sentinel attempted to acquire Earnhardt's autopsy records and photos
for study, autopsy records being normally public documents in Florida, but
Earnhardt's widow, Teresa, (along with public opinion) prevailed upon a judge to
seal the records. After a short court battle, it was mutually agreed to appoint
Dr. Barry Myers, a Duke University expert on crash injuries, to independently
study Earnhardt's death. On April 10, 2001, Myers published his report rejecting
NASCAR's explanation, finding that Earnhardt's death was in fact the result of
his inadequately restrained head and neck snapping forward, independently of the
broken seat belt (making the question of proper or improper installation moot).
"If the outboard lap belt had remained intact throughout the crash, Mr.
Earnhardt's head would still likely have experienced similar inertial forces and
similar contact forces with the steering wheel. As such, the restraint failure
does not appear to have played a role in Mr. Earnhardt's fatal injury."
Dr. Philip Villanueva, a University of Miami neurosurgeon who had previously
analyzed the crash for the Sentinel before the autopsy records were available,
said he had reached the same conclusion, but had wanted to examine the autopsy
photos to be certain. Dr. Steve Olvey, medical director of Championship Auto
Racing Teams for 22 years, and Wayne State University crash expert John Melvin
also agreed with Myers' report. Simpson's founder, Bill Simpson, called the
report "the best news I've heard in seven weeks. I've been living in daily
hell."
On the same day as Myers' report was made public, NASCAR announced its own
investigation, after having remained silent for six weeks since the accident.
However, when the greatly anticipated official NASCAR report, which had cost
over a million dollars, was published on August 21, 2001, it cited collision
with another car, the speed and angle of impact, and separation of the seat belt
as factors in the fatality. After NASCAR's report, Simpson retired, citing the
stress as "too much." The Simpson company attorneys asked NASCAR to
unequivocally assert that
The belts were of high quality in workmanship and there were no design or
manufacturing defects.
The belts met the NASCAR rule book requirements.
The belts, as installed, did not conform to manufacturer installation
requirements.
The separation of the left lap belt was not a result of design or manufacturing
defect, but caused by improper installation.
The belt separation was not the cause of Earnhardt's death.
NASCAR however, did not respond.
Consonant with its report, NASCAR declined at the time to require drivers to
wear the uncomfortable head and neck restraints, NASCAR president Mike Helton
saying "We are still not going to react for the sake of reacting." However, it
did state that it "encouraged their use". Drivers were indeed encouraged, with
41 out of 43 drivers wearing them at the Pepsi 400 by Meijer at Michigan
International Speedway on August 19, 2001 two days before NASCAR's report came
out.
In the end, there was no controversy as all competitors and the sport's insiders
knew the truth. Before Earnhardt's death, driver's Kenny Irwin, Adam Petty and
Tony Roper had all died of basal skull fracture due to a blunt impact with the
wall delivered at a critical angle. Impacts and angles that were nearly
identical to Earnhardt's accident. In 1999 NASCAR had mandated new rules for the
car's chassis which ultimately lessened the amount of energy the car absorbed
and increased the amount of energy the driver absorbed in an impact with the
wall. As well, leading experts all knew that this fact, coupled with the lack of
soft walls or head and neck restraints were a recipe for disaster. All of these
were concerns that NASCAR knew about prior to Earnhardt's accident.
Unfortunately, it took the death of the sport's greatest star before NASCAR
would finally react. And when they finally did react, they deflected the blame
upon other's (Simpson) in an attempt to lessen the damage that their own
reputation was taking for allowing such a dangerous, yet preventable, situation
to continue.
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