Earnhardt’s Legacy Reached Heights Unseen

The influence of Dale Earnhardt on the runaway growth of NASCAR stock car racing into a multibillion-dollar industry was immeasurable.

When Earnhardt burst into the Winston Cup series as a brash rookie from the North Carolina textile town of Kannapolis in 1979, NASCAR was trying to shed its reputation as a Southeastern regional sport catering largely to beer-swilling Bubbas in pickup trucks with Confederate flags adorning their antennas.

Richard Petty, the sport’s first great hero, and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., which brought Winston sponsorship into the sport, had started the push outward, but it was Earnhardt who captured the attention of Californians, New Yorkers and Midwesterners, as well as the Solid South.

“The fact is that Dale Earnhardt was the driver for NASCAR and played such an important role in all of our energy level and enthusiasm that built NASCAR to what it is today,” Mike Helton, NASCAR president, said Monday at a press conference at Daytona International Speedway.

“It’s hard to comprehend the statistic sheets for Dale Earnhardt are now permanent. But it’s real easy to understand that Dale Earnhardt will be a part of this sport for generations to come. He will always be a racing hero to millions of fans throughout the world. His desire to work side by side with NASCAR for more than 20 years helped us to have the success we are now enjoying.”

Earnhardt was killed Sunday while racing through the final turn of the final lap of the Daytona 500, NASCAR’s premier event. His Chevrolet was tapped in the rear by Sterling Marlin’s Dodge and Earnhardt turned sideways and shot into the outside retaining barrier at about 180 mph. Doctors said it was virtually certain that he was killed instantly on impact.

” . . . More than just a fracture of the base of the skull, I feel there were probably significant injuries to the base of the brain that were the cause of death,” Dr. Steve Bohannon, the head of emergency services for the race on Sunday, said at a news conference, commenting on preliminary results of an autopsy. The complete autopsy report will not released for several weeks.

Earnhardt’s first season, when he was rookie of the year, also was the first season that a race, the Daytona 500, was shown in its entirety live on home television.

It was a transition year in Winston Cup.

Petty, Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough were beginning to fade as the sport’s main attractions, to be replaced by young drivers such as Darrell Waltrip, Bill Elliott and Earnhardt.

When Earnhardt won his first Winston Cup championship in 1980, he was universally disliked by NASCAR fans. They felt he had stolen the crown, and its $2-million bonus, from the popular Yarborough and Junior Johnson’s team.

And when he won his third Cup title in 1987 with 11 victories and was named American driver of the year, he was the anti-hero.

“I remember going to races just to root against No. 3,” said one fan lined up to buy Earnhardt memorabilia at Daytona USA. “I didn’t care who won, I just wanted him to get beat. He seemed so arrogant, with that bushy mustache and a grin that made me furious when he won.”

The more Earnhardt won, the more fans rooted against him, and this meant more fans jamming NASCAR tracks for that privilege.

R.J. Reynolds took its Winston Cup banquet to New York City and the Waldorf-Astoria in 1981 and no one thought Earnhardt, better known then as “Ironhead,” would ever show up in a tuxedo.

He fooled them. When he won his fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh Cup championships, there he was, spiffed out in his most elegant black tie and tux, accepting vast sums of money from NASCAR’s sponsors.

About that time, Bill France Jr. and NASCAR began to realize what a gold mine it had in Earnhardt, and he began to realize what a gold mine he was himself.

In 1994, a record 4.8 million fans attended 31 races, an average of 157,936. That was up a million from the previous year.

“Dale was really a booster of NASCAR,” France said. “Whenever you asked him to do something to promote the series, he stood tall.”

That same year, Earnhardt earned $3.3 million in purse money, but that was only a fraction of what he made in endorsements, auto dealerships, a racing team, collectibles and a number of racing-oriented businesses.

He took on the livery of a wealthy sportsman, buying boats, airplanes and going on hunting trips, but he never lost sight of his No. 1 priority--winning races.

“Haven’t you won enough to take it easy and enjoy life?” he was asked.

“What’s enough?” he answered. “If there’s a race out there to race, I want in it, and I want to win it.”

Then, as he approached 40, a strange thing happened.

He went from being despised to the crowd favorite. He never changed his rough-rider racing tactics, but just as fans in earlier years had been upset when he came along to unseat Petty and Allison, fickle fans felt sorry for him when young drivers such as Jeff Gordon came along to replace Earnhardt at the front of the pack.

Interest in the black No. 3 Chevy and its racing rivals on Sunday afternoons increased at such a pace that new race tracks began cropping up to accommodate the growth of this high-speed sport outside the South.

New Hampshire International Speedway opened in 1990, Homestead-Miami Speedway in 1995, Las Vegas Motor Speedway in 1996, California Speedway in 1997 and new tracks in Kansas City and Chicago will open this year.

Winston’s sponsorship involvement in 2001 will be a record $13,020,000. More than 6 million spectators are expected at 38 events this year, and NASCAR has a new six-year, $2.4-billion (with a B) TV package to showcase its excitement on Fox and NBC.

“I sit back sometimes and say, ‘Wow,’ ” Helton said last week. “To sit back and look at what it was 20 years ago, it’s mind-boggling where it is today.”

But what will it be without “the Intimidator”?

“It’s going to take time, if we ever do, to fill the void,” said France, who made a rare public appearance since undergoing cancer treatment. “Life has to go on. Somebody is going to come along.

“We have suffered great losses before when Fireball Roberts and Little Joe Weatherly and Tiny Lund were lost. They were tragic, but someone came along. Dale Jr. looks like he has the potential to follow in his father’s footsteps, the way Dale followed in his [father’s].”

Ralph Earnhardt, who won the NASCAR late-model sportsman championship in 1958, died while working on his car at home. Dale, 13 at the time, had not started his racing career.

Ed Clark, president of Atlanta Motor Speedway, put the loss in NASCAR perspective:

“This was our main guy. When they introduced him [Sunday], he got the biggest applause there. He’s the man, he is NASCAR Winston Cup racing.”

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The grounds at Daytona International were as barren Monday as a ghost town in the Arizona desert.

The only things moving were sea gulls and ducks on the infield lake, and the American flag at half-staff in a brisk breeze. All of the 167,000 seats were empty and so was the infield, which 30,000 had crammed to watch Sunday’s Daytona 500.

Team haulers were gone, headed for Rockingham, N.C., and Sunday’s Dura-Lube 400, before Earnhardt’s death was announced. Most racing personnel heard the news on their radios or on TV when they got to their homes or hotels.

Fox, which televised its first race in NASCAR’s lucrative six-year contract, was off the air before his death was known.

Napa Auto Parts, one of NASCAR’s major sponsors, had this message on a billboard in front of its Daytona Beach store:

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Racing in Heaven.