Drivers Try to Focus on Race, Not Earnhardt

The ride through the tunnel wasn’t so tough for Rusty Wallace. The first lap was different.

For the first time since Dale Earnhardt died, Wallace and the rest of the NASCAR drivers returned to Daytona Beach on Thursday, each coming face to face with their own mortality in a sport with a preciously thin margin for error.

“I went into Turn 3 today, and it was like, ‘I remember that melee,’ ” Wallace said. “I was in the middle. Earnhardt shot across my bow. I got on through and said, ‘Whoa, this is cool, the world just opened up.’ I didn’t know he had been killed in that corner.”

That was Feb. 18, in the last lap of the Daytona 500. As drivers return to the racetrack for the Pepsi 400, they come back to find a different track--a different sport.

Most notably, they lost their most colorful character in a sport that became more buttoned-down and businesslike as it grew exponentially the last decade.

They also lost the rival they respected the most, and one of the few athletes in any sport who couldn’t be ignored.

“I used to go to the racetrack and say, ‘How did Earnhardt qualify?’ ” Wallace said. “I didn’t ask who was on the pole. It was, ‘How did Earnhardt qualify?’ Now, I just go to the track and run.”

An afternoon thunderstorm scrubbed qualifying Thursday, meaning the drivers will come back at noon today to determine starting positions for the race.

Track officials hung large, black banners with Earnhardt’s trademark No. 3 on the outside of two towers on the north side of the track. The bottom of the banners reads, “In our hearts forever.”