Hello Everyone!
I wanted to just come on here and talk about a really cool but also sad story of my one of favorite drivers in NASCAR, who unfortunately I never got to actually meet. My uncle is a die hard Dale Earnhardt Sr fan, went to every Daytona 500 and race week (Race week is the week before the 500 where they have a few races to prepare for the big race)
My uncle arrived in Daytona Beach FL, on February 1, 2001, to watch the Rolex 24 which was a 24 hr endurance race on February 3-4. Sr and Jr were driving Corvettes and finished 4th overall.
Then there was The Budweiser Shootout on the 11th, then the Gatorade 125s on the 15th. Then after 3 days of just meeting drivers, my uncle got a lot of pictures of different drivers, met Jr and got his autograph. He met Senior on the morning of the 18th/ The 500 and got a picture and his autograph on a poster that he has in a frame, even got him to sign a hat that he keeps in his display shelf of all of Sr's merchandise.
Then the big race happens, and from what he told me and from what I've watched on YT, it was a favorite fun race, much more fun than the 2000 Daytona 500. He got a lot of pictures of those last couple of laps, and even got a video of the final lap.
Now if you don't know what was happening, let me explain it to you, Sr's friend and former teammate of DEI, Michael Waltrip, brother of NASCAR legend Darrel Waltrip was in the NAPA #15 Monte Carlo was in 1st, Dale Earnhardt Jr, was in his Budweiser#8 red Monte Carlo in 2nd and Earnhardt himself in his Good wrench Black#3 was in 3rd, and Sr was blocking for them, driving aggressively, cutting off cars and putting him in the way of the herd of drivers behind them and it worked for a good while until the that final lap. They came around for the white flag and went into turn 1 and 2 and Earnhardt was still driving back and forward to block them, however as they went down the backstretch, Earnhardt got sucked between Ken Schrader in the Yellow M&M#36 and Sterling Marlin in the grey#40 car, but I don't think Earnhardt was gonna let that stop him. They went into turn 3 and all 3 of them were running for the checker flag, and Earnhardt had a bit of space on them, but Marlin had a nose under him and Sr tried to cut him off and that's when it happened, Dale shot towards infield and tried to correct it and went up to the outside wall, which was when Schrader hit the right side of Earnhardt and he changed the angle of his car, and Sr's #3 hit the wall almost head on at a 160 mph. My uncle said that he was looking into his camera, taking a picture of Waltrip and Jr when he heard the tires squeak and he heard metal slam into the wall. When he looked up, Earnhardt and Schrader were in the wall. They would then slide into turn 4's infield and Schrader would climb from his car and go check on Earnhardt, who wasn't moving in the car or trying to get out. My uncle was sitting at the end of turn 4 and saw all of EMTs working on Earnhardt's car and watched them cut him out, then he watched the ambulance drive away with him inside. A little later, one of his friends who worked at Halifax in Daytona called him and said that his boss came out and said that Earnhardt was gone. And it was over. Michael Waltrip won his first race, the biggest race of the season, but it took Earnhardt Sr's life with it. My uncle went to his hotel and cried his eyes out because he basically saw his hero and mentor die. He went to the memorial thing they did at the raceway before Earnhardt's trailer drove out of the raceway. And now that Austin Dillon drives the #3, he doesn't go for it anymore, he actually goes for #9: Chase Elliot
Anyways, I just wanted to come on here and explain my story on why I made my account about Sr and my uncle's story, because Daytona 500 was just yesterday, which I did watch with him, but thank you and I hope you like my story
