Remembering Dale Earnhardt

Fathers and Sons

By Todd Trubey
Senior Columnist, TOTK.com Sports
www.totk.com

On February 18, 2001, Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second in Daytona 500. It was undoubtedly one of the saddest days of his life; however, because his father, Dale Earnhardt, Sr. died in a hospital after a crash in the final lap of the same race. Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was 49 years old. No son deserves to lose a father who hasn't reached 50, especially in such a way.

I heard the news as I was walking on a treadmill, and I nearly fell off. I don't watch NASCAR, but my father does, and the Intimidator was his favorite driver. This event, however, is not the first to connect father and son, car racing and death, for me.

My father and I are very close. He would probably be the best man at my wedding if it were not for the fact that he belongs with my mother during that ceremony. My father and his father were not as close. I wish I knew this first hand, but I never got to see Dad interact with his father. You see, my grandfather died before I was born, just a few months before my parents got married. He never made it to age 50.

When I was thirteen, I found out that there was one thing that my father and his father shared, something that Dad did to honor his father and their relationship each year. He watched the Indy 500. Dad and I were on a Boy Scout camping trip and one of my friends had brought a boom box. Dad said very early in the trip that he needed it for a few hours, to listen to the Indy 500 on the radio. Dad and I had always watched the big race, but then we watched a lot of sports together, so I never made much of it. When it came time for the race, Dad didn't get the boom box because, well, my friends and I were stupid kids. Dad was angry, which is always terrifying because he so rarely gets that way.

When we got home, I asked my mother about it. She told me that Dad and my grandfather had always watched the Indy together, and that he always thought of his Dad during that race. I, of course, felt like the biggest creep alive for not making sure my dad got the radio, but of course I didn't know about why the race meant so much. From that day forward, I always made an effort to watch the race, although that got pretty tough for a few years there with the IRL thing.

I called Dad tonight after I heard the news, but he was at a dinner party. As it happens, he had stopped watching the race at the moment after the crash and didn't know what had happened until he heard the voice message I left expressing my sympathy. I also told him that I loved him and Mom. I couldn't help but think that Dale Junior would have given his second place finish and about a million other things just for one more opportunity to tell his father the same thing.

Whether it is because my Dad and I are so close or because he's the only paternal figure I knew growing up (I don't really know my other grandfather, although he's alive), father-son
relationships hit me where I live. It's why I can't watch The Lion King, pathetic as that may sound. Of course, more horrible than a son losing a father is a father losing a son. NASCAR showed us that recently, too, when Kyle Petty's son Adam died on the New Hampshire track. Watching the look on Kyle's face as he told the media how he felt to have lost his son was as excruciating as anything I've ever seen on SportsCenter.

A lot of people are thinking today that there are too many deaths in car racing, and that if we can't prevent sons from losing their seven-time Winston Cup champion fathers in races, we ought to scrap the damn thing altogether. Certainly, today, many of us are glad that our fathers are not NASCAR drivers. I myself thank God almighty that my dad is well known for driving a bit too slowly rather than at 180 miles per hour.

I'm not, however, going to jump on that bandwagon on this day. For although car racing took away Dale Junior's father, and Teresa Earnhardt's husband, car racing also undoubtedly brought that family closer together. And there are hundreds of thousands of fans brought together with their families watching those races. Darrell Waltrip, the recently retired brother of 2001 Daytona 500 victor Michael Waltrip, once was asked what he thought of the hard-driving Intimidator. He asked the reporter what that reporter saw in the grandstands, and the answer was: a bunch of hard-working people, havin' a good time on Sunday. Waltrip replied, "There's your answer; Dale is one of them."

The fact of the matter is that the drivers know the horrible risks they take, and that we probably couldn't keep them from driving at high speeds no matter what we did. Race car drivers are simply built differently from the rest of us.

It is still a shock and will be for some time that the black number 3 car that was so central to NASCAR for so long will be absent, especially given the reason. The 2001 season will
undoubtedly be a grim one, with racers feeling guilty or dubious about being a slot higher in the standings than they would otherwise be. One of those racers, of course, will have so much more to be grim about. Today my heart goes out to him and, for better or worse, my thanks go out to him and the other drivers who risk so much to provide entertainment to so many.

The only consolation that can be offered to Dale Earnhardt Jr., and it is very small consolation indeed, is that the father now taken away from him undoubtedly brought many other fathers and sons closer together in his glorious, long, but still too brief career.

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