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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
CUP: Loss Of Earnhardt Stirs Memories
The death of Dale Earnhardt once and for all changed the safety debate in NASCAR...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted December 31, 2009   Charlotte, NC
Since Earnhardt’s death, there hasn’t been a single fatal NASCAR Sprint Cup, Nationwide or Camping World Truck Series crash. - Tom Jensen (Photo: LAT Photographic)
My colleague Jim Pedley eloquently tells the story of the death of Dale Earnhardt on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500, which he rightly insists is unquestionably the biggest story of the decade.

And here is the story behind the story:
(Dale) Earnhardt said he understood the risks of racing, knew he could die in a race car and accepted that as part of the deal.- Tom Jensen (Photo: LAT Photographic)

The date was Sept. 8, 2000.

I’d just arrived at Richmond International Raceway for the track’s second race of the season and the culmination of what should have been the best stretch of racing all year: Bristol, Darlington and Richmond back-to-back-to-back, three consecutive weekends of old school Southern racing, the way God and Big Bill France intended it to be.

As I walked into the infield, J.R. Rhodes, who was Dale Earnhardt’s PR rep, stopped me and said, “Dale wants to see you in his trailer right away.”

The biggest star this sport had long since ceased needing any publicity, not with seven championships to his credit and millions of adoring fans.

But this was a strange, angry and contentious time in NASCAR. Adam Petty died at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in May, and Kenny Irwin perished there two months later. There was much debate about the subject of safety, and a lot of different opinions.

At Darlington a week earlier, Bobby Labonte had had a savage and scary crash in practice when his throttle stuck open, the same culprit suspected in the Petty and Irwin fatal crashes. During the Southern 500 weekend at Darlington, several drivers — Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Rusty Wallace and Dale Jarrett — delivered impassioned discourses on safety and in some cases, suggested NASCAR wasn’t moving fast enough to make the sport safer.

Earnhardt, who carried more clout than the rest of the garage combined, was having none of that, though I didn’t know it when Rhodes approached me a week later at Richmond. At the time I was executive editor of what’s now known as NASCAR Scene, which was and still is the most influential print publication in stock-car racing.

As I walked over to Earnhardt’s hauler, I saw a couple of other reporters milling around and Richard Childress walked up to me and grabbed me on the arm. “I just told one of your reporters that I think the other drivers are a bunch of pussies,” Childress told me. “Make it sound good in print, OK?”

Rhodes led me into Earnhardt’s hauler where I found David Poole, the NASCAR beat writer at the Charlotte Observer, syndicated national newspaper writer Monte Dutton and Henry Miller, a newspaper writer from the Midwest. None of us knew why we there.

All of a sudden, Earnhardt burst into the trailer looked at each one of us closely, turned back to Rhodes and thundered, “Goddamn it, JR! I told you to bring me the four biggest writers in racing, not the four f---ing fattest asses!” All four of us being full-figured and all.


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