With love or fear, we watched because of him

By DARRELL FRY

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 19, 2001

He was sitting there, legs outstretched and arms folded. It was less than 30 minutes before the Daytona 500 Sunday, and Dale Earnhardt was being interviewed during Fox's pre-race show, his trademark sunglasses covering eyes that you know blazed with anticipation.

Remembering ‘The Intimidator’ in photos

Earnhardt walks down pit row holding the hand of his wife Teresa, just prior to the start of Sunday's race.

He looked exactly as he always did. Cool. Confident. The absolute picture of calm.

There will be a million images shown of Dale Earnhardt over the next several days, but that's the one -- the coolness, the casualness, the fearlessness -- I'll remember most. In a sport in which danger hangs like a low fog, Earnhardt never blinked.

There was no fear in him. He did the scaring, not the other way around. That's why they called him the Intimidator.

I don't know if it was the dark wraparound sunglasses or that mischievous grin of his or that down-home North Carolina drawl with which he always spoke. There was just something about him that told you he knew a little more about this racing business than everyone else. Before a race, he always looked like the kid who had gotten the answers to the test in advance.

He raced like it, too. Seven Winston Cup championships. Seventy-six victories. More than $41-million in career prize money.

In racing circles, this was like Michael Jordan dying. He performed as Jordan did. He won when everyone knew he was going to, yet was powerless to stop him. He could be two laps down and still be in contention. He was that good. That special. That cool.

With the exception of Richard Petty, there is no bigger name in NASCAR than Earnhardt. Yes, the man is gone, but the name is indelibly written on this sport, and not just because of Earnhardt Jr.

You want to know why NASCAR is the huge success it is today? It is, in part, because of Earnhardt. He's the one racing officials can thank for the crowds of 175,000 to 200,000 that pack Daytona International Speedway twice a year. He's a big reason folks are stumbling over themselves trying to build more racetracks and add more races to the tracks that already exist. He's why folks in non-traditional racing towns such as Chicago and New York and Los Angeles know what a superspeedway is.

Petty may have brought NASCAR to the national stage, but Earnhardt is the one who turned the spotlight on it. He's the main one who took it from being just a secondary sport to the fastest-growing sport in America.

Sure, guys such as Petty, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, Junior Johnson and Bobby Allison advanced stock racing from its moonshine origins. But if you have any doubt about Earnhardt's impact on NASCAR, just ask someone, anyone, to name one Winston Cup driver.

Betcha they say Earnhardt.

You see, besides dominating his era like no one else, Earnhardt also moved people like no one else. Plenty of drivers are as loved as Earnhardt, but none is as loved and as hated.

His true genius was that he made you choose sides. He made you feel something toward him. In a sport in which more than 40 drivers compete almost every Sunday of every week, there was no ignoring him. He made you care one way or the other.

Of course, today there is no love-hate relationship with Earnhardt. There is only love. For a 49-year-old fallen driver. For a grieving family. For a fraternity of brave men who have their most compelling argument ever for increasing driver safety.

In all fairness, NASCAR has been aggressively pursuing the issue. For instance, the roof flaps that were implemented in recent years have greatly reduced the number of airborne cars.

But clearly more needs to be done if Tony Stewart's car can flip violently as it did during a 21-car wipeout and survive while Earnhardt dies in a seemingly routine crash into the Turn 4 wall.

Nothing NASCAR does now, of course, will help Earnhardt. He is gone and we are the lesser for it.

By now, NASCAR ought to be used to this sort of thing. Officially, there have been only four NASCAR deaths beginning in May, but it seems more like 40.

Expect the grieving this time to last a little longer, to cut a little deeper. With Earnhardt's death Sunday, NASCAR has lost something. Something rare. Something almost celestial. Something it can never get back.

The sport will survive just as it did when it lost Davey and Alan and Neil and the others. But make no mistake: It will never, ever be the same.

It won't be as intimidating. Or as cool.

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