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Speed was a vital part of what attracted people to watch, and watering it down could have turned people away. Revisit this four-part series on the life, death and legacy of Dale Earnhardt. On Feb. 18, 2001, the day Dale Earnhardt died, he was down in the Daytona 500 Victory Lane as "the hat dance guy" who made sure the race winners wore all the correct sponsor caps for all the right photographs. After cheering home his brother Michael to victory in the commentary box, he said on air: As excited and proud as I am for Michael, Im praying for Dale. And considering all the things Earnhardt said about dying, including just moments before his own death, he was at peace. His death forced a garage full of people who have always prided themselves on their bravery to grapple with a sensation that is especially foreign among race car drivers. He got in his car and I got in my car and we ran a race.". "We went in there and knew it right away," he remembers now. From Senna to Earnhardt," published just prior to Hubbard's death in February 2019. "I would not be an alive racing driver today sitting here," he says. It's not going back into my body as a race car driver. THOSE WHO WORKED in the sport before the 2001 Daytona 500 and still work in the garage today frequently find themselves wrestling with the before and after of NASCAR's mentality toward safety. The injury is caused by: impact to the chin, jaw and face; impact to the head anteriorly, posteriorly or laterally; impact near the top of the head; and inertial head loading, in which the spine and neck muscles are called upon to stop the moving head. Driving a race car, whether it is NASCAR, Formula One, or another type, is far more than just going around in an oval. "Official Accident Report No. Prparez votre voyage ! But this time, he made a point to come see me.". According to the official accident report, Earnhardt's Monte Carlo was traveling 160 mph when it blasted into the bare concrete wall at the 1 o'clock angle and immediately decelerated by 42-44 mph. By summer, the crumpled No. "It's a credit to all the people in the industry," he continues. Helton says that NASCAR's greatest challenge was stepping out of the garage bubble and asking for help, a departure from its longtime wagons-circled way of doing business. Kyle is the grandson of Lee Petty, winner of the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959, and son of Richard, NASCAR's biggest pre-Dale Earnhardt superstar. THE 2001 DAYTONA 500 was without question the most hyped and anticipated event in NASCAR's then-53-year history. Since Earnhardts death, and its subsequent safety drive, NASCAR has not suffered a fatality in its major leagues. He doesn't want it to become a tourist attraction. We had to ask, what will doing this here mean to another part of the car over there, or to the drivers?". Earnhardt Sr. was there with one purpose in mind each race: win. Those are the questions that I ask at 3 o'clock in the morning when I wake up in a cold sweat, thinking about Adam and thinking about Dale. The IROC race car had an all aluminum forged internal Katech Chevy 350 small block, overbored .040 to 358 cubes producing 470 horsepower. He was racing at Daytona International Speedway and was on the last lap. "Any time the driver's unconscious, we know it's going to be a difficult situation," Bohannon said in January during a visit to Daytona, his first time back to the track in years. "But it sure came back to my mind just about exactly 24 hours later.". The father-son team was battling it out to the finish on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. When NASCAR president Mike Helton tried to handle the group of international journalists like he would have the normal Rockingham crowd, it did not go over well, especially when he repeated a mantra he'd already preached at Daytona the day after Earnhardt's death, with NASCAR chairman Bill France Jr. at his side. I am not satisfied with this. Earnhardt died in a crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500. "I stretched my neck so hard," the eventual 2001 Cup champion said. When he looks at that car, that mind is in overdrive, constantly trying to CSI what happened, how everything around him, all of that metal, rubber and foam, moved and bent and crushed in just the right way to keep him alive. ", Bohannon rode back to the track with Helton. He made contact with another car and both vehicles hit the concrete wall. In 2007, the R&D Center also birthed NASCAR's Generation 5 car, aka the "Car of Tomorrow." "To this day, I don't know why I went to the hospital," Waltrip says. In an interview shortly before his death in 2014, Melvin recalled that meeting: "I figured that I would be shown the door. And that was it. Earnhardt was familiar with the racetrack in Florida, winning the Daytona 500 series in 1998. It became OK to talk about it as a group. It was Teresa Earnhardt. The tool that could have saved him wasn't some new invention that needed to be discovered. You talk about all the things that have happened in the last hundred years of racing and safety "Those people collectively saved my life.". From the time they went on sale in 1991 through Earnhardt's death a decade later, Downing and brother-in-law Robert Hubbard sold fewer than 300 of their HANS devices, specifically designed to prevent a basilar skull fracture, the injury that killed Earnhardt. But then, in 2001, we were going to them and saying, 'OK, talk to us.'". Now you are expected to do it.". I thought I had this path and this direction, with him, to do what we were going to do. All she said was, "No. NASCAR 2023 at Las Vegas schedule, entry list, and how to watch, NASCAR 2023 at Las Vegas schedule, entry list, and how to watch The current 60,000-square-foot building opened its doors in 2003. Newman said yes. How much does an F1 car weigh in 2023 and what's included in the limit? There hasn't been a death in NASCAR since. The world began looking at racing in a completely different way after his autopsy results. Roubaix has timezone UTC+01:00 (during standard time). We're gonna do this together,'" recalls Dale Earnhardt Jr. "He didn't do that before races. "In 1964, Joe Weatherly hit his head because he used loose seat belts, and Fireball Roberts burned to death because we were using metal fuel cells. The crash that killed Dale Earnhardt on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 was hardly the routine hit it initially appeared to be - he was traveling 150 mph and his angle of impact was. I know a lot of drivers -- Ryan Newman, me -- we can thank Dale Earnhardt that we are alive here today. But I want to see him and hear what his opinions are about our family. "Blaise was one of my best friends," says Jimmie Johnson, who made his Cup Series debut at Charlotte Motor Speedway that same week. It was worldwide. And Earnhardt's 2000 resurgence as a title contender had the old-school fandom worked into a frenzy. "I was within a few feet of Earnhardt and he just didn't want to hear about the HANS," Hubbard recalled in his book "Crash! Earnhardt Jr. recalls the day of his dad's fatal crash (3:04), 'How did we let this happen? THE BIBLE VERSE was taped to the instrument panel of Dale Earnhardt's Chevy Monte Carlo when it veered into the Turn 4 wall at the end of the 2001 Daytona 500. And on yet another TV is footage of a high-speed camera from last fall's Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval event, pointed at a Cup Series driver as his car bounces off a backstretch barrier. How Penske's rookie sensation opened NASCAR's new era in style, Six key themes to follow in the 2022 NASCAR Cup season, Six key themes to follow in 2022 But to the cameras and Patalak's trained eye, the blip was a solid test of the driver's HANS, seat and headrests. During driver introductions for the 2001 Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt spoke with Winston Kelley of MRN. Earnhardt, a seven-time Winston Cup champion, crashed on the final turn of the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18 and could not be revived. "'Dad, what do you think about all that? 8. February 18, 2001 is NASCAR's darkest day. All did their jobs. The whereabouts of the race car in which Dale Earnhardt crashed during the 2001 Daytona 500 are largely unknown. That never stops.". The 1998 Daytona 500 win was a popular one in the garage as seen by the amount of congratulations Dale Earnhardt received on pit road heading to Victory Lane. NASCAR hired a Washington, D.C.-based PR firm, which immediately advised France that "being pissed off is not a plan.". He was removing Earnhardt's wedding band when Teresa's voice came from the back of the room. France Jr. was happy. Updated: Apr 7, 2021 That is part of Earnhardt's legacy: safer cars. While race teams pressed on through grief, the sanctioning body trudged through a PR quagmire, even as post-Earnhardt television ratings rose. Earnhardt said to Waltrip two days earlier, in an interview with the rival-turned-retiree-turned-TV analyst. The organization made changes to make things safer, according to NASCAR. I've got it all! But he has pored over the car so many times and watched the video even more. "So, now, here we all were, balancing grief, the loss of our friend. I couldn't do it for you right now. Not even when Patalak is trying to squeeze in some Sunday family time. In 2003, nearly 200 people died and scores were . The drivers of these cars have to have unshakable confidence in themselves. I'd be at my car getting in and he wouldn't come up to me, you know? Her husband tried to talk her into finding a different verse, something less ominous. Earnhardts left-side lap belt had separated in the impact, allowing his body to twist forward and to the right inside the car. NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Sr. crafted a perfect persona borne of belief in himself he often walked around wearing sunglasses and a stone-faced look. "We were already ramping up safety efforts from different things; you could look back at the history of roof flaps [added to cars in 1994 to keep them from going airborne at speedways] and different things that we reacted to in the past," Helton says. The engine stayed put, but everything around it moved, in some cases a full two or three feet to the right. His brother Michael Waltrip, who was unaware and celebrating in Victory Lane, went on to release a film in 2019 about that day, Blink of an Eye. That's always stayed with me. Motorsports can always be safer, but they will never be safe. That's what we all want.". "Dr. John Melvin, the racing safety expert, or Dr. Bob Hubbard would come to talk about safety or the HANS, and we respected them but didn't understand them. The 24-year-old thought about himself, his own racing career and his life as a fatherless son. Earnhardt died in a crash on the final lap of the Daytona 500. Medical crews were on the scene moments later but, despite their best efforts, there was little to be done but transfer Earnhardt to the ambulance and directly to the nearby Halifax Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead. Everybody was all-in on, 'How do we fix this? On February 18, 2001, Dale Earnhardt Sr. lost his life at the 43rd running of the "Great American Race" following a collision on the outside wall at Daytona International Speedway. With his two DEI cars in the lead, The Intimidator did something no one can ever remember happening in his previous 22 Daytona 500 starts: He widened out his rear bumper and blocked anyone and everyone trying to make a charge at Mikey and Junior. Now, it could have cost me. And it was still there three hours later, when, in the infield grass at the bottom of that turn, Ken Schrader took that same window net down to talk with his old friend about their wrecked race cars, only to find the seven-time champion slumped over in his seat and the cockpit covered in blood. Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com. safety improvements in the sport over the past 20 years, which saved Ryan Newman in a scary crash at the 2020 Daytona 500. He told Eury what had happened, assuming he already knew, but it was the first he was hearing of it, and the stoic old mechanic broke down. The only big-ticket item missing from the show was the "Big One." But he was immediately distracted by Earnhardt's crash, watching the No. The conclusion of the report was that Earnhardt had indeed died of a basilar skull fracture, though to many, the true cause of the injury seemed buried under all the data and a raging public battle with Bill Simpson, longtime safety guru and manufacturer of the seat belts in question. Distracted by Earnhardt 's legacy: safer cars not even when Patalak is trying to squeeze some! Him and hear what his opinions are about our family be safe some cases a full two three. But it sure came back to my mind just about exactly 24 later. 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