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Article Series: NASCAR
Everything You Need To Know About NASCAR
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Tribute To NASCAR Driver Dale Earnhardt
Americans who’ve never even seen a NASCAR race know the name
Dale Earnhardt; perhaps in the 90’s it wasn’t yet a household
name in America, but after his death in 2001, his name
has definitely become one known to all Americans. However,
a lot of Americans who know his name don’t really know
who he was. Most people will be able to come up with an
answer that vaguely alludes to cars and racing, but admit
that they don’t know the real story behind who this man
really was, both at the height of his career and earlier
on in his life.
Earnhardt (not to be confused with also NASCAR racer Dale
Earnhardt, Jr., his son) was one of the nation’s most
successful NASCAR drivers ever. His career, though ended early by an untimely
on-the-racetrack death, was a lengthy and a steady one. Steady
in the sense that he was consistently among the top-ranked
drivers. Though his was not a household name before his untimely
death, his name was more than well-known to avid NASCAR fans
across the country. Even if a fan was not a supporter of Earnhardt’s
team, his name was always among the top names as one of the
uncontested greats among the truly great American NASCAR drivers.
Earnhardt was born into a racing family, learning most of
what he knew early on from his father. It seems that Earnhardt
worked so hard to become a good driver in order to show his
father just what he could do. Though his father did not live
long enough to see even the beginning of the height of his
son’s racing career, it’s safe to say that his Dad would be
more than proud of his son’s ultimate skill, career, and the
positive changes that were his influence on the world of NASCAR
racing.
Like Earnhardt learned from his father, Earnhardt’s son, Dale
Earnhardt Jr. has followed very fittingly in his father’s footsteps.
The careers of Earnhardt and Earnhardt Jr. overlapped, and
Earnhardt Jr. was on the racetrack the day that his father
died in a final-lap crash in 2001. As Earnhardt’s car crashed
into the barrier wall, Earnhardt Jr. sped on to the finish
line. The public was not told for quite some time that the
injuries sustained in this crash had been fatal. It was not
NASCAR’s fieriest crash; it was not even Earnhardt’s fieriest
NASCAR crash. A crash from a few years before his life-ending
crash in 2001 left spectators breathless, thinking that he
must have sustained very serious, if not fatal, injuries…until
he jumped out of the car, waving to fans, with a broken collarbone
and a few other small injuries. His 2001 crash looked milder
to spectators watching, but the crash turned out to be fatal.
Earnhardt
has two extremely large legacies in NASCAR. The
first is that he was an incredibly talented racer, with a long
list of wins and an even longer list of adoring fans. The second
legacy Earnhardt has left to NASCAR is one that is still evolving.
His first major crash, though not fatal, stirred major changes
in NASCAR’s safety regulations for their drivers. His fatal
2001 crash stirred even bigger safety changes and continue
still today to be a driving force in safety regulations for
NASCAR cars and drivers in addition to the construction of
the tracks themselves.
Similar to sports that retire jerseys of their most famous
and most successful retired players, so is Earnhardt’s auspicious
number 3 black GM Goodwrench car retired. It was retired almost
immediately after his death; his teammates took on a new number
and a different color scheme, leaving his black #3 as the physical
legacy of the bigger inspirational legacy Earnhardt left to
NASCAR fans across America, and indeed, to all Americans for
putting NASCAR on the map of American sports.
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SolveYourProblem.com
: 2009
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