A Brief History
On February 18, 2001, a nation of racing car fans was stunned when the biggest current star of NASCAR stock car racing, Dale Earnhardt, died in a high speed crash into a wall at the Daytona 500, the premier race of NASCAR.
Digging Deeper
Known as “The Intimidator” for his aggressive racing style, Earnhardt was born Ralph Dale Earnhardt (later Sr.) in 1951. Winner of the 1998 Daytona 500 and tied with Richard Petty with a record 7 Winston Cup Championships in 1994 (later tied in 2016). Dale Sr. also added 4 IROC Championships to his list of accomplishments. By 2001 Dale Sr. had won nearly 100 NASCAR races and had finished in the top 10 over 500 times! Of course, he is in the NASCAR Hall of Fame (as well as others) and is considered one of the top stock car drivers of all time. (Dale Jr. has 50 wins and 342 top 10 finishes himself, not too shabby!)
On the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 Earnhardt collided with 2 other race cars and went into the wall nose first at about 160 mph.
Earnhardt was running 3rd at the time of the crash, with Dale Jr. and teammate Michael Waltrip ahead. On lap 173 the group of racers trailing the leaders experience a huge wreck, taking 18 cars out of the race. The fatal crash sequence began when Sterling Marlin tried to pass Dale Sr. and their cars touched, causing Dale Sr. to hit another car.
The 49 year old Earnhardt was found to have died nearly instantly upon contact with the wall of blunt force trauma to the head and a basilar skull fracture. (Just a few months prior to this wreck, Adam Petty, the son of race driver Kyle Petty of the famous racing family had also died in a NASCAR crash of a basilar skull fracture.) Earnhardt became the 4th NASCAR driver to die in a race in a 1 year period, alarming authorities enough to enact new safety regulations. Earnhardt refused to wear a bulky and confining safety device (that was optional) that may have saved his life, and after his misfortune the HANS device became mandatory. Earnhardt’s seatbelt may have failed in the crash, also resulting in more stringent seat belt inspections.
NASCAR has been the premier stock car racing circuit since 1948, and commands a bigger audience (live and television) than every other sport in the US except NFL football. Of the top 20 highest attendance at a single sporting event in the world, NASCAR holds the record with 17 of those such events! Despite being called “stock cars,” the racing cars are not in any way or any part “stock,” and are built from the ground up as purpose built racing vehicles.
Dale Sr. is buried in his hometown of Kannapolis, North Carolina, and 8 years would pass before Dale Earnhardt’s #3 would again appear on a NASCAR race car. In 2004 ESPN released a made for television movie titled 3: The Dale Earnhardt Story, with numerous other tributes to his memory, including at least 2 roller coasters named “The Intimidator” in his honor. The metal band Weedeater produced a song called “No. 3” about Dale Sr. and a Dale Earnhardt Sr. racing helmet it enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Mulcahy, Russell, dir. 3 The Dale Earnhardt Story (2 Disc Collector’s Edition). Team Marketing, 2012. DVD.