I met him in 1973. I had wrecked my car at Daytona, and I brought it to a repair shop in Charlotte, N.C. One night, this ruddy-faced, dirty-looking kid with a pair of Hush Puppies came down the driveway towing an old dirt-track car behind a farm truck. He was about 23, and he looked as backward as they come. It was Dale Earnhardt. I remember he kept saying to me, “I’ve got to get off these dirt tracks, or I’m never going to amount to nothing.” So one weekend I let him drive one of my cars at a race in Nashville. He wrecked everybody in the field, tore my car all to pieces. My friends called me and said, “If you ever let that guy come here again, we’ll break your neck.”
He never changed. He was always Dale Earnhardt, “The Intimidator.” And that name–they didn’t have to make it up. Because he’d wreck you. Sometimes I would say to him, “Dale, why did you hit that guy out there?” And he’d say, “Well, you know, we were just racing.” He was the greatest driver I’ve ever seen. He could drive a car around a track with snow on it. Sometimes, drivers let a car drive them. He always drove the car. One of the few times he didn’t have control was that Sunday.
We were a quarter of a mile from finishing what I thought was the greatest Daytona 500 in years. I was in the broadcast booth for Fox Sports, and my little brother Michael was in the lead. I had so much emotion. “He’s going to win his first race ever,” I thought, “and it’s the Daytona 500.” He and I had talked about this. He’d say, “What if, the first time I win, D.W., you’re in the booth calling the race?” And I said, “Well, if it’s Daytona, I might have a heart attack.”
When our cameras first panned down to Dale’s car and I saw Kenny Schrader, the other driver in the crash, running his way, I was still expecting Dale to climb out and put his hands around Schrader’s neck. That’s what Dale would do. Every Earnhardt wreck I’ve ever seen, he comes out hot because somebody did something they weren’t supposed to. But then I saw the replay, and I got chills. I told the guys, “Oh, no, that’s the kind of wreck that can kill you.” They said to me, “No, no, no–you’re overreacting. It didn’t look that bad.” Time and time again I’ve heard that. “Oh, it didn’t look that bad.”
After we went off the air, I turned around and saw a friend of mine. He had tears in his eyes, and I’m still thinking it’s because Michael won. But then he started shaking his head. “Come on, we’ve got to go,” he said. “I don’t think Dale made it.” Well, I just went into total shock. I didn’t know whether to go to Victory Circle or to the hospital. My brother was down there. I wanted to go and hug his neck. I wanted to celebrate with him. But my friend of 30 years, he might need me worse.
Why do we keep doing it? I always say, “Just ‘cause a plane falls out of the sky, we don’t quit flying.” So when someone gets killed in a race car, we don’t quit racing. It’s a way of life. You’re protected by all that metal. Then you slip that helmet on, and you become Superman. Invincible. Dale was adamant about his helmet–the open-faced model he raced in all his life. Even though that and his broken seat belt may have cost him his life. But a driver sees no danger. He sees straight ahead.
I retired from racing a year ago. During my career, my wife Stevie would write pieces of Scripture on notecards and give them to me before a race. She’d sit down on a Sunday morning and go through the Bible. Then at some point during the race, I’d look at the card. In 1994, just after Dale’s really close friend, Neil Bonnett, was killed at Daytona, Dale asked her, “Will you do that for me, too?” From that day on, she made one for me, one for him. We’d meet at the racetrack–she and Dale and I–and she’d have the two Scriptures, mine and his. Dale would read both of them and then he’d say to me, “You take that one, this one’s mine.” Then he’d wink at me and say, “I got the good one, didn’t I?” That’s what happened two Sundays ago. Dale didn’t know if Stevie was even going to be at the track, since I wasn’t racing. So when he saw her there with a notecard, he was really pleased. It was Proverbs 18:10: “The name of the Lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.” Dale read it, then he looked at her and said, “I got the good one, now don’t I?”
