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Sunday, July 8
Storybook ending leaves drivers amazed
Associated Press
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- With a swan dive into the waiting
arms of his crew, Dale Earnhardt Jr. played the part of the
jubilant hero in white, filling the void left by his father, the
beloved man in black.
| |  | | | Earnhardt Jr. |
If only Earnhardt's triumph Saturday night at the Pepsi 400 had
been plucked from a storybook, and not the life-and-death world of
auto racing, the evening might have been perfect.
"Teresa is going to get a lot of calls from the major networks
trying to get the rights to this," Earnhardt said, referring to
his stepmother.
He was only half-joking.
After all, what better setting for another dramatic twist to
NASCAR's emotion-filled season than Daytona, in the first race back
since Earnhardt's fatal crash?
"I think that's perfect," driver Rusty Wallace said. "I can't
think of a better script to play than to come back to the track
that took his father away from him. To have him be able to honor
his father with the victory is pretty cool. I wish I would have
been the one shoving him across the line."
Instead, as fate would have it, that honor fell to teammate
Michael Waltrip. He's the driver who got the push from Earnhardt
Jr. at the finish of the Daytona 500, while the elder Earnhardt
hung back in third and protected them both before his crash in Turn
4.
Waltrip was the first to reach Earnhardt in the infield, where
Junior jumped out of the car and thrust his arms in the air. Before
that, he spun doughnuts in the grass. For a second, it seemed to be
an eerie reprise of his father's own raucous infield celebration
after a stirring breakthrough at the Daytona 500 in 1998.
"This place is part of our lives -- more so than any other place
in the world," Waltrip said. "We weren't more emotional than
normal, we were just normal -- as normal as we could be since we
lost our friend."
That friend, The Intimidator, surely would have loved what he
saw, had he been there to witness the final laps.
Junior got pushed back to seventh place following a late yellow
flag. When the green came out, there were six laps left.
Earnhardt's car had been dominating all night. Still, the moves
he made to regain the lead seemed more like the movies than real
restrictor-plate racing.
Darting in and out of the pack alone -- racing without the
drafting help that is so vital at Daytona -- it took Earnhardt only
1½ laps to overcome all six cars.
Sure, it was bold and exciting. It was also a practically
unheard-of strategy for this kind of racing, where restrictor
plates on the carburetors hold speeds down, and drivers who leave
the pack without a partner often lose dozens of spots before they
get back in line.
|
“ |
I can't
think of a better script to play than to come back to the track
that took his father away from him. To have him be able to honor
his father with the victory is pretty cool. I wish I would have
been the one shoving him across the line.” |
|
|
—Rusty Wallace |
Naturally, that kind of unreal dominance left room for skeptics
who wondered if Earnhardt's victory really was too good to be true.
"You don't go by yourself on the outside and make that kind of
time up," said Johnny Benson, who led after the restart, but wound
up finishing 13th. "But it's OK. It was good that Junior won. I
know he wanted to win, and he got it done."
Whatever the reason, Earnhardt really did have the best car all
week.
It showed during Friday night's Happy Hour practice, where he
put on a show, going to the front of a long line and never letting
up, as the crowd roared its approval.
Come the race, nothing changed. Earnhardt pulled to the front on
lap 27, and led most of the rest of the way -- a staggering 116 of
the 160 laps.
"My car was the best car here, I think you all saw that,"
Earnhardt said. "I was just trying to stay in the right line and
keep the RPMs up on the car. It seemed like I could get out there,
three or four car lengths ahead, and it would take them a lap and a
half to catch back up."
He conceded such dominance can make for monotonous racing.
Still, it was hard to be bored on this special night.
It figures that Junior's win can only help NASCAR. This sport
is, after all, still smitten by the Earnhardt name.
That was obvious from the sea of red, white and black that
filled the stands; the hundreds of flowers, pictures and messages
strewn around a makeshift monument outside Turn 4; the overwhelming
roar that filled the track when Junior crossed the finish line.
The loss of his dad in February focused much of the attention on
Earnhardt, a 26-year-old who is still getting comfortable in the
role of fan favorite and patriarch.
Going winless so far this year didn't help anything.
"You start to feel a little pressure that you won't win for
them and give them a reason to root for you," Earnhardt said. "So
it's a good feeling. That's why I pulled down on the front
straightaway and jumped out of the car. That was for the fans and
nobody else."
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