How do you explain the aftereffects of the 2001 Daytona 500 to someone unfamiliar with the sport? How do you explain an event that, even ten years later, can cause the burliest of men to shed a tear? How do you explain how one singular event can so deeply affect a legion of fans?
For the last ten years there has been countless times where I have attempted to explain why the death of someone I have never met is nonetheless still profound. My wife doesn’t understand, most of my friends don’t understand, and anyone else I explain it to provides an inescapable look of confusion on their face.
It seems silly to some in numerous respects, but in order to understand that fateful day one has to understand the context in which it occurred.
NASCAR Cup racing prior to Nextel, prior to the Chase, prior to the COT, was a massively different sport. On paper, the changes seem minute, but there was an intimacy to the sport that has been lost over the years.
In this era it was our sport and our drivers. Rebuked by the media and fans of the more typical stick and ball sports, we sat alone… and cherished it. Much criticism is expressed about today’s coverage, namely because in those days it almost seemed as if you were watching a race with your buddies.
Whether it was Bob Jenkins, Ned Jarrett, Benny Parsons, Eli Gold or the late Neil Bonnett, you felt as if you were sitting on the couch right next to them. Truly, that was the beauty of that era, the feeling as if there was no divide between the sport and the fans.
Today much is made about the accessibility of sports starts today. From how stars like Shaq or Chad Johnson will respond to fans on Twitter to the way someone like Deion Sanders gives back to his community. The media will tell you that this is the most intimate era of sports in history.
But that isn’t true because in those days it was different. Much, much different.
Drivers were often as accessible as you were to your family and friends. It wouldn’t be unheard of to be hunting deep in the woods of North Carolina and bump into Dale Earnhardt. Or visit a Bill Elliott dealership and actually chat with Elliott himself.
When Harry Gant was in the midst of his record setting winning streak in 1991, a reporter searched high and low for Gant in order to interview him. Eventually resorting to a phone call to Gant’s wife, she informed him where he had been all week… perched on the roof of his house doing some shingling.
These drivers were the same as you, as I, as everyone else. They were truly the every man of the sporting world… and we loved it.
So on Sunday afternoons we weren’t just cheering on our favorite drivers, we were cheering for what could be a family member or a close friend. There was no facade of a public image, what you saw was a person whom, presumably, was just like you and trying to make a living.
They just so happened to be doing so at 200 miles per hour.
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[/media-credit]Dale Earnhardt was the epitome of this notion. When I was younger, he was as close to as a deity as anything I had seen. He was my Michael Jordan, a person beyond greatness whom I, and many others, deemed to be infallible.
Over his career, we had witnessed Earnhardt perform remarkable feats on the track that defied belief. Watching him wheel a stock car was like watching Picasso with a brush. It was an utterly breathtaking experience.
Even more so when the camera would pan towards him and you would see Earnhardt’s typical smirk. Sliding a car sideways and snaking it between others would be enough to dirty the shorts of most drivers, but for Earnhardt it was just good ole fashioned fun.
Ironically the last race he completed, the opening IROC event at Daytona, was a micro-chasm of who he was as a man and as a driver. After performing what is arguably the most spectacular save in the history of Daytona International Speedway, he retaliated by spinning the instigator, Eddie Cheever, after the race.
Upon exiting their vehicles, one would expect anger and malice. Instead, their stood Earnhardt, grin and all, mucking it up with Cheever. It was like it was nothing more than a squabble you or any of your bodies would have, culminating in a cold beer and a good laugh.
It was what we loved not only about Earnhardt, but the sport itself.
As the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 drew near, we noticed a different Earnhardt. Instead of the Intimidator, there raced the protector as he watched his son and his previously snake-bitten driver, Michael Waltrip, streak to victory.
Much has been written and said about what had happened inside of that black number three on the last lap, but the only certainty is that he possessed his trademark smirk heading into that final corner.
What happened then seems as unbelievable today as it did that day. The epitome of the sport, the infallible driver who once raced with a sternum so shattered and broken it overlapped, was gone.
Every fan has some indelible image stamped in their memories from the first moments after that race. For me, it was the slowness of the ambulance as it made its way to Halifax Medical Center and the scramble to find out what was happening afterwards.
The most popular analogy we give other sports fans is having to watch Michael Jordan die on the court in the midst of a game winning pass or score.
Only it’s not that simple. Fans were not as intrinsically and emotionally connect to Jordan, or any other sports star, during their period of greatness. They were always above the fans because of their greatness, but their death would be nonetheless tragic.
This is different. This is personal.
It’s disconcerting to witness something of this nature. I can only surmise that it is like witnessing the sudden last moments of a loved one or close friend’s life. Every second is re-livable… and every second is just as painful.
Its why, ten years later, I personally have not been able to sit down and watch Earnhardt’s funeral. I’m not sure if that VHS tape will ever move from the shelf in my office. Ten years later it’s still… too real.
A monumental amount of good has come from that inauspicious day. No amount of good will ever be able to erase the pain that we all feel this time of year.
Perhaps it’s easier to explain to others that on that day, part of ourselves died as well. It’s a sore that is as real as if a family member had died. And that each year it becomes a bit easier, but it is something which will never heal.
That’s what happens when you see your hero die before your eyes. That’s what we live with every Daytona Speedweeks.
Is that so hard to understand?
[/media-credit]Old pavement, new pavement, it doesn’t matter to Bobby Gerhart as he still continued his Daytona dominance with his seventh Daytona win.
