Word: earnhardt
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...NASCAR nation, Dale Earnhardt has been front-page news every Sunday of every race season, and some Sundays in between. For the rest of Americans, he was a name they knew, the emblem of a sport they'd seen here and there but probably didn't know too much about...
...Then Earnhardt's black No. 3 Chevy hit the wall on the final lap of the first and biggest race of the year, the Daytona 500, which this year was also the kickoff for a new era for NASCAR. Now, there won't be many weeks when TIME.com awards the Person of the Week posthumously. But the title recognizes echoes as much as men, and this was the week the stock-car-racing world spent stumbling around with its heart ripped...
...Earnhardt, the doctors say, died instantly when he careened into the wall between the third and fourth turn of the final lap of the first race of the 2001 Winston Cup season, making one last push for victory lane. Michael Waltrip won, in one of Dale's cars, and Dale Jr. finished second, and the peculiarities of the moment allowed the pair to savor some unalloyed Daytona glory before the news caught up to them that The Intimidator's tame-looking crash had been his last...
...Dale Earnhardt is dead; that is not the way we are used to having a sports superstar depart the field. Sadly, race fans are more used to death than those of other pastimes. NASCAR officials maintain that safety will always be a top priority. But whether you tune in for the competition or the crashes - look deep in your heart before answering - danger is part and parcel of the thrill. When a sport's competitors strap themselves into two-ton steel thoroughbreds and take off around the crowded oval at nearly 200 miles an hour, death will always hover above...
...NASCAR will certainly wish it had him and his hirsute grin to do commercials on its new network home, and keep the old school alive. It will mourn Dale Earnhardt, and miss him. But he did the promo of a lifetime Sunday when he hit that wall between the third and fourth turn...