The news of Dale Sr.’s
death knocked the wind out of NASCAR fans and out of our sport. However, as painful and wrong as it seemed, the show
had to go on. We loaded up our heavy hearts and went on to Rockingham the next week.
Then as if to help the
healing process begin, Steve Park, driving for DEI won the race at Rockingham. Again, for the 2nd week in a row, the
entire NASCAR nation cried together but this time, we cried with a bit of a smile on our faces. Maybe, just maybe, we
could carry on.
Without Earnhardt Sr.,
Richard Childress had a tough decision to make. He nearly decided to stop racing but he knew how mad Dale would have
been had he made that choice. Instead he put a new driver, a kid named Kevin Harvick in the car. The color changed,
the number changed but the team and pit crew remained.
The fourth race into
the season at Atlanta, Kevin’s 3rd start with Earnhardt’s team, he pulls off one of the closest and most emotional
wins ever, beating Jeff Gordon by inches (eerily like Earnhardt’s victory over Bobby Labonte the year before.)
By this point, I thought
that I was all cried out and I was nearly able to hold it together. That is until the cameras cut to the crew and there was
Chocolate Myers, Dale’s gasman and long-time friend, this big grizzly bear of a man, sobbing like a baby. Well, I totally
lost it again.
Move forward to July
2001. We were heading to Daytona for the Pepsi 400. My husband and I were working with a Goody’s Dash team
and I had decided that I wanted to stay and watch the Cup race from the grandstands. For me, it was sort of like getting back
on the horse. I needed to see if I could go to that track and watch a race and not be so haunted by the memories of the
February race.
I tend to be very emotional
about my racing. About 2 days before we were to leave for the track, I had an overwhelming sense of dread. I decided
that I could not handle the emotion of being there after all. Just as quickly as that feeling hit, it was almost like
a voice spoke that said “Go, you do not want to miss this.”
We took the shuttle bus from
our hotel, walked about 2 miles (seemed like 10) to our seats in the “cheap” section. It was hot, July in
Daytona, crowded and it seemed that everyone around us had already had way too much to drink. I sat the entire race with
ice packs on my neck trying to keep from overheating and passing out.
2006 StockCar Review.
