Word: earnhardt
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Some years ago, someone asked three-time Winston Cup champion Darrell Waltrip why racing fans loved Dale Earnhardt. "Did you ever look in the grandstands?" Waltrip said. "There's your answer. Dale is one of them...
...Earnhardt crash, tragic as it may be, could be its ticket. The deadly mishap landed Earnhardt - and NASCAR - at the top of every Sunday-night newscast and on the front page of every Monday-morning newspaper. The sport wanted to reach a wider audience, gain a greater legitimacy. And for anyone whose interest in the sport was piqued by the news - and whose wasn't? - the Earnhardt obituary makes a sad-but-perfect introduction...
...With an eighth-grade education, a push-broom mustache and a from-the-gut driving style that earned him the nickname "The Intimidator," Earnhardt was as apt a face as any for a sport whose roots lie with Prohibition-era bootleggers who souped up their cars to outrun fat sheriffs on dusty Dixie roads, and he had a devilish grin to match anything Burt Reynolds flashed in "Smokey and the Bandit...
...Hailing from Kannapolis, N.C., Earnhardt was a good ol' boy who made good, earning $41 million and starting a business, Dale Earnhardt Inc., that owned the car of his son, Dale Jr., who finished second, and winner Michael Waltrip (younger brother of Darrell). His driving style ruffled plenty of feathers, but in 1998, when Earnhardt won his only Daytona 500 on his 20th try, someone from nearly every Winston Cup crew in the infield reached out to slap his hand as he drove toward victory lane...
...sitting in front of the Sony Trinitron every Sunday in a neon Earnhardt or Gordon T shirt and a NAPA auto-parts hat. But I now check to see who wins each week, and on the highway, I find myself looking for my openings, waiting for just the right moment to jam it in there. Maybe that's how it begins, and before long you're going around repeating the line Bill France says he stole from Hemingway: "There are only three sports. Bullfighting, mountain climbing and car racing. All the rest are just games...