DALE EARNHART’S LAST WIN – NASCAR’S DESERTED DECADE
-Rocky Sinyard with Photos by Fred Hanyon
Race fans … ten years-ago, we all watched as The Intimidator made a masterful drive from 18th-to-win, with only four laps to go, at the famous Talladega Superspeedway. Old Earnhardt fans like me have to thank Kenny Wallace and Joe Nemecheck, in their Andy Petree chariots, for giving him the final “shove” to the front! He won the Winston Million, and his 76th and final win on that day, as he would die in “the crash” the next February.
For you younger out there, racing wasn’t the same back then. The cars were different…bump drafting was different. Nowadays, with the COT and bumper-to-bumper driving styles, going from the back to the front in four of five laps maybe commonplace… but not in Earnhardt’s day!
Every old race fan knows that Earnhardt “could see the air” … and if you watched the 2000 Winston 500 … or any other restrictor-plate race before that time, you would believe that he could! He won 10 Winston Cup races at Talla’Bama! (Now Talladega since Earnhardt is gone.) He also scored 3 IROC wins and one Busch win at the 2.66 mile tri-oval.
How racing has changed! If you “You Tube” the 2000 event… and compare that to race to this year’s 2010 affair… you will see the differences. Back then, there was not any “bumper-to-bumper-drafting” for laps… and no safe barriers… no Hans Device. And there were still a few “real men” out there racing in those days… not a “group of boys” like today.
On a Saturday afternoon in North Georgia, just before a rain storm, I briefly spoke with David Ragan. (He was at Lanier Raceway hoping to get in some test laps.) I said, “NASCAR needs to open up the restrictor plates so that a driver can run at 200mph on qualifying laps”. He responded with something like, “we are qualifying at 184 to 186 now… and racing at 200mph. What do you expect?”
Then the rains poured and I ran in one direction and David ran in another. Friend… I wish that we could have finished that conversation. David is a great person and good driver… but truthfully, his answer “sums up NASCAR’s last ten-years”!
Race fans… I believe that we all must agree that Dale Earnhardt’s departure has hurt NASCAR tremendously. Their attendance has fallen off… their TV ratings are down. And nobody has the courage to step up and become the leader that Earnhardt was in this sport. Race fans… Talla’Bama died with Earnhart… and it’s been a “lonely ten year”!
-Rocky Sinyard
(Archive photo by Fred Hanyon)