That fateful day was February 18, 2001. We all know what happened that day, rehashing it here would be pointless. The death of one of stock car racing’s brightest superstars has altered NASCAR racing forever.
Most racing fans will concede that the majority of the changes concerning driver safety have been beneficial to the sport. These include the mandated head and neck restraint (HANS device), the driver seat modifications, and the SAFER barriers. SAFER barriers? Has anyone seen how hard some of the race cars have whacked the inside walls?
Some other changes haven’t been as widely accepted, and don’t have anything to do with driver safety. As far as a lot of long time NASCAR fans are concerned, the jury is still out on the so-called “Chase for the Championship.” NASCAR contends that it’s a big success. If it’s such a success, then why did they change it?
A lot of fans have a lot of ideas to make the sport more appealing. One change that would make the sport more appealing would be to switch race dates with the Daytona 500 and the Ford 400. The big race should end the season, not at the beginning of it. Can anyone imagine starting the NFL season off with the Superbowl? Then folks wonder why a lot of sports enthusiasts fail to take NASCAR racing seriously…
The sad part of the major safety changes is that it took the death of a superstar to spearhead them. I can think of four deaths that were within a couple of years prior to the fateful day; apparently NASCAR didn’t think those deaths were worth investigating to the point of making changes to prevent further fatal mishaps. When a seven-time champion met his untimely demise, they finally stood up and took notice that dead drivers were not conducive to the continuing success of stock car racing.
Just think, if NASCAR had begun to take notice more earnestly when Kenny Irwin, John Nemechek, Adam Petty, or Blaise Alexander met their demise on the track, that fateful day may never have come…
The safety changes didn’t come easy for a quite a few teams. Some drivers were stubborn when it came to donning the HANS device, and there were a lot of complaints when the driver seat was modified to keep the upper body from moving sideways. It became much harder for a driver to see what was happening beside them. The drivers had to learn to trust their spotters more than ever before.
Another change that hasn’t been widely accepted is the Car of Tomorrow (CoT). The jury is still out on that one too! When it comes down to apples and oranges, the CoT was designed primarily with driver safety as one of the key factors in its development. Placing the driver’s seat more to the center of the greenhouse (driver’s compartment) was a big plus, along with the roof hatch to extract drivers more efficiently. The larger greenhouse is also a big plus, along with the rear wing instead of the old spoiler, which was always a major point of controversy on different models. The CoT took a lot of major complaining about different models having an advantage over the others completely off of the table.
The only thing different on the CoT is the engines of the four different models, and of course the different grill configurations, which are basically the same except for the cosmetics of manufacturer emblems and some grillwork. Nowadays, the main factor is horsepower, with the secondary factor being balance. The major teams with all of their modern technology were able to figure out the balance quickly, leaving the teams with lesser financial backing to catch up, which is nothing new to the sport. I have to admit, having a rear wing without a corresponding front wing was quite the engineering accomplishment; although some teams are still dealing with the nightmare of trying to figure out how to balance the race car for the different types of tracks on the circuit.
All in all, the safety changes have been great for the sport. When you see a NASCAR racer whack the wall backwards at 190 MPH, and walk away with a hand waving to the crowd, you can thank our fallen seven-time champion. The fateful day will never be forgotten…
That fate filled day will stay with me forever. Racing has not and will never be the same again. I was not sure if it was the fact that the drivers suddenly realized that if DE could die, then they could to, or if all the changes that followed were to blame for the dullness to the racing or if the attitude by NASCAR has made racing change.
When you see a race at Bristol or Martinsville or Dover and when it is over you say….. God, why did I waste my time watching that I think right away of F1. Watch the first couple laps and last couple laps and you have basically seen the race.
A good fist fight, some attitude by the drivers when they are totally Pee’d off is great to watch. Shows they are human. But NASCAR is turning our drivers into F1 drivers. Top 3, you HAVE to talk to the media even if Pee’d off and don’t you darn utter a bad word… Big fine to follow everything. Next thing the drivers will be wearing business suits instead of fire suits to drive there cars.
As for TV viewing….. some Racing God has decided that the station only focus on the winner of the race, not the rest of the pack coming over the line and you know as well as I do, that some of the best action can happen after the winner crosses that finish line. Even during the race they focus constantly on the top few cars and to heck with the rest.
What ever and who ever is making these kinds of changes is losing me and some of my best racing buddy fans. It has become a waste of time to sit and watch a race on tv and give me no desire to go out of my way to go to race when held fairly locally that I could go to.
The fun and excitement in racing has simply slipped away. It is becoming a white collar sport and forgettiing its roots of “rednecks”.
Nice column Tom.. You’re off to a good start… couldn’t have picked a better driver for your 1st column…. I was there the Day The Man died..Tears in my eyes, and I wasn’t an Earnhardt fan…… we said then, it was the end of Nascar as we knew and loved it…….
Been a fan for over 70 years, but rapidly losing my desire for the sport…. Never missed Daytona Speed weeks for 21 years.. quit when it was no longer “The Winston Cup” ….
One of my biggest gripes is that”Lucky Dog” …. whoever came up with that should be shot.. Aint it called Racing ??
slowly changing my mind about the CoT… a lot of great improvements, and it puts the car back more into the drivers hands, and does away with the dreaded “Aero push”..
Glad that TNT is taking over the broadcasting again…
one more “Boogity” and I’ll puke…. MacReynolds knows his stuff, but he never shuts up…and Darrell always was the #1 motormouth….
Looking forward to more of your columns…. Mike’s site
is probably my favorite… It’s where I usually get the good stuff first….
It is sad that the price of making the sport safer was #3. Just to avoid any revisionism, Dale was a pretty big opponent of many of the safety devices that COULD have saved his life.
Saving lives is justification for the COT.
My problem with the COT is that until Dover, nobody has been able to get the thing to turn. As a result, that is a safety issue.
My in depth take is here:
http://ccrnascar.blogspot.com/2007/05/cot-nascars-bass-ackwards-approach-to.html
Interesting article.
Stockcar racing, the REAL stockcar racing, has been dying for a long time. Long before #3 crashed. Truly a sad day, but there were many drivers well before he came along that perished in the sport. Few are ever acknowledged today.
The Indy 500 WAS a stockcar race. Now its “open wheel” garbage. NASCAR and BUSCH are all about the money, not racing or competition. “Big money” rules what is touted as a stockcar race. What a load of ………..!
I drove stockcars in the ’50′s on a 1/4 mile dirt track in Des Moines, Iowa. We spent the week, with like minded racing friends, building and rebuilding the cars we raced. That was the heart of “stockcar racing” in this country. Still is on the few legitimate dirt track’s still in operation. Racing was fun and entertaining for everyone. I love to drive. With more than 2 million miles of driving all sorts of vehicles, mostly semi’s, I find today’s “sport of racing” purely trashy exhibitions of monetary greed. Is it any wonder why people go to racing events to see if some idiot driver will get killed or severely maimed? They don’t give a “hoot” about the safety factors. They want crashes and maybe death.
What we are exposed to today isn’t worth the time to watch. Too many “color annalists”, who haven’t a clue, giving viewers their B.S. of what they think we are required to be made aware of. They beat “interviews” to death from those drivers that could care less! All the drivers want is the money they can glean.
I’m with “Batjak’s” comment above! One more of those idiotic “boogity” emanations and I’ll puke, too. Geez! Gimme a break!
I also hope that Kurt Busch gets banned from racing altogether. Getting mad at another driver is one thing. That will happen. Putting people in jeopardy of being injured or killed, with reckless insane driving, is another. If that would have been me in Tony Stewart’s pit that he nearly ran over, I’d have put Busch in a body cast ……….. permanently! Or at least would have had him arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and attempted manslaughter. That kind of behavior is totally unacceptable anywhere at anytime.
That’s my “nickels worth”.
I agree that Nascar died all the way that day. My 12 yr old son and I mourned for several days. Big E was not a fan of most new saftey features. Look at his open face helmet. Yes, Nascar has gone the way of F1 and IRL. Most races have become predictable and boring. DW has worn out that Boogity stuff. And thank goodness Mikey only qualified for 2 races or we would have heard oh look at Mikey. They show the same tech stuff that we really dont need to hear. Sure the days of old the cars were just as different and some boring races, but at least you had drivers with guts. These days if you touch someone you might get penalized and place on probation. If they did what Big E did these days they would soon learn at lesson at the Red trailer.
I enjoyed your column and your tribute to the drivers who are no longer with us. Another Craftsman Truck Driver, up and coming young star Tony Roper who my husband and I met at
Evergreen Speedway, Monroe, WA when the trucks were still racing the smaller tracks, unfortunatelylost his life in a truck race around the same time as Adam Petty lost his life. Neither one of us can remember where this happened.
I AGREE THAT NASCAR LOST THE TRUE MEANING OF RACING WHEN DALE WAS KILLED. NASCAR WOULD NOT BE THIS BORING IF HE HAD LIVED. LOSING BILL FRANCE JR NOW IS THE LAST OF THE RACING ERR AS WE KNEW IT. DALE AND BILL KNEW NASCAR. BILL WOULD LISTEN WHEN DALE TALK. WHO IN NASCAR SPEAKS UP NOW? DON’T GET MAD DON’T CUSS AND DON’T BUMP MAKES FOR A BORING RACE.