Preamble: The title comes from a book by Robert Sheffield’s 2010 novel “Talking to Girls About Duran Duran.” In the novel, he takes 25 pop songs from the 1980s and uses each song as a jumping off point to talk about his love of music and growing up in the 1980s. (If you’re more into hair metal than pop, you should also check out Chuck Klosterman’s 2001 book “Fargo Rock City.”) In “Talking to People Who Don’t Know NASCAR About Daytona, I’m going to take devote each entry in the series to one of my Top 10 favourite Daytona 500s. Instead of discussing who led what laps, etc. I’m going to describe to an audience (and probably a non-existence one) why I chose this particular race.
#1 – “The 1998 Daytona 500 – Dale”
No matter how else you want to stack up the greatest moments in the history of the Daytona 500, there’s little argument that can be made that the 1998 Daytona 500 shouldn’t be at the head of the list.
Even if Dale Earnhardt hadn’t finally won the Daytona 500, he was destined to be a legend in NASCAR. With seven championships and already in the Top 10 in career wins, Earnhardt had the stats that would have already placed him among the sport’s elite drivers. His mere presence on the race track, driving a black car and a willingness to put the bumper to anyone who got in his way, who was always in position to win whether on the short tracks or superspeedways, the persona of fierce warrior one moment and court jester the next had, by early 1998, had all but solidified his legacy.
But one checkmark remained: a win in the Daytona 500. Earnhardt must have had a love/hate relationship with NASCAR’s most storied track. In 2016, he remains NASCAR’s all-time wins leader at NASCAR, chalking up wins in the Busch (now XFINITY) series, the July Cup race, February’s preliminary races…but never in the Great American Race, the Daytona 500.
Oh, he had come close. He had finished in 2nd place four times before 1998. He had been within a few laps of winning on many occasions, dueling with Geoff Bodine in 1986 when he gambled Bodine needed to pit for fuel (he didn’t), drafting with Ken Schrader in 1989 when both assumed Darrell Waltrip would run out of gas in the final laps (he didn’t), finishing second to one of the feel good stories of the 500, Dale Jarrett, in 1993. He wrecked in 1991 and again in 1997.
In 1990 came perhaps the hardest blow of them all. As the laps wound down, Earnhardt had a 27-second lead on the rest of the field and would eventually lead 155 of the first 199 laps. But coming out of Turn 2 of the 200th lap, he ran over debris and blew a tire going into Turn 3. Instead, Derrike Cope would inherit the lead and claim the Daytona 500 victory that should have been Earnhardt’s.
While Earnhardt would, after Sterling Marlin’s 1995 victory (the second straight Daytona 500 win for Marlin), question if he would ever win the Daytona 500, he was bound and bent the race would never beat him. In 1997 after a wreck that took him out of contention with 10 laps to go, Earnhardt returned to the car, demanded it be lowered from the wrecker, took it back to pit lane and had his crew make repairs so he could finish the race. It was a statement: Dale Earnhardt was not going to let the track or the race beat him. He might not win but he was going to go down fighting.
1998 would be the 20th attempt Earnhardt made at winning the Daytona 500. At lap 138 Earnhardt took the lead and never looked back. In the closing laps, Bobby Labonte and Jeremy Mayfield were top contenders Earnhardt continued to outdistance them, using the skills he had mastered on the superspeedways and restrictor plate tracks to maintain the lead.
Even with Earnhardt seemingly securely in the lead, no one was ready to hand the trophy to him just yet. He had come so close so many times only for fate to find a way for him to lose. Would he blow a tire? Blow an engine? Would a late restart give someone else an opening?
On Lap 198, John Andretti and Lake Speed were involved in a collision, far behind the leaders. With the yellow being shown, it meant a three-car shootout, racing back to the finish line to decide the Daytona 500.
As the leaders came through the final turns, Earnhardt was able to employ Rick Mast’s lapped car as a “pick” to block Mayfield and Labonte and gain even more distance in the lead. As he did so, Mike Joy who, along with future Hall of Famers Ned Jarrett and Buddy Bake, had been calling the race, uttered the immortal words.
“Twenty years of trying…Twenty years of frustration…Dale Earnhardt will come to the caution flag to win the Dayton 500!”
One might think that the image of the black Chevrolet Monte Carlo roaring across the start-finish line would be the greatest moment in the history of the Daytona 500…. but I’m here to argue it’s not. Oh, it’s close. But for my money it’s what happened just moments later that deserves that honour.
For, as Earnhardt came down pit lane en route to victory lane, a phenomenon that had never happened in the history of the Daytona 500 and has never happened since occurred. Every member of every pit crew left their stations and came to the edge of pit row to congratulate Earnhardt on the win that had so long eluded him. These were the men on teams who had, for the past 198 laps, been trying to get their driver in position to beat Earnhardt for the win and now they were there to high-five him, shake his hand, congratulate him. Everyone knew the mark that Earnhardt had etched in NASCAR and what the win in this race had meant to the legendary driver. It was a moment so touching that as Mike Joy called it, his voice broke.
And with the Daytona 500 win finally achieved, Earnhardt could set aside his warrior persona and adapt that of court jester. His route to victory lane wasn’t a straight line. Instead, the black #3 Goodwrench Chevrolet headed for the grass along the front stretch to do…well, not donuts per say, but rather to churn out a #3.
As you watch video of Earnhardt heading to victory lane, it’s almost as if, from the moment Dale Earnhardt first buckled in behind the wheel of a race car, that moment, of him being ushered by his crew, officials, and well-wishers towards the winner’s circle had been created in the annals of racing history, and it had taken him 20 years but he was now catching up to that moment.
But even then, the instances to remember about Dale Earnhardt’s victory in the Daytona 500 weren’t over quite yet. After unbuckling, Earnhardt pulled himself from his seat and onto the window ledge and you can almost see all those years, all the effort, all the near misses, just lifting off his shoulders. For all the gruffness he usually showed in his visage, instead, Earnhardt is smiling, playfully banging his fist against the Chevy’s roof.
As car owner, Richard Childress, enters the frame, Earnhardt’s eyes well up as he and his boss and friend Childress embrace, having finally achieved what has so long eluded them.
If there is one moment that chokes me up above all others, it’s when Earnhardt exclaims “My name’s on the trophy; they can’t take it off!” Perhaps despite all the championships, the wins, the acclaim he had before, Earnhardt believes that by winning the Daytona 500 and having his name engraved on the Harley J. Earl trophy, that he has finally cemented his legacy in NASAR.
Perhaps it was that long journey that made Dale Earnhardt’s Daytona 500 win all the more special. If he had inherited the lead when Geoff Bodine pitted in 1986, if he had gotten past Schrader when Waltrip ran out of gas in 1989, if the tire had held on for another mile in 1990, if he had been on the winning end of “the Dale and Dale Show” in 1993, perhaps his Daytona 500 victory wouldn’t have produced the type of moments that can move one to tears if you think on it hard enough.
In taking 20 years to win that 500, Dale Earnhardt showed the world, not just the NASCAR world or even the auto racing world, that if you want something enough and you try hard and long enough and you don’t give up, you’ll eventually achieve it, and the victory will be all the sweeter.
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