NASCAR
Bob Pockrass, NASCAR 6y

Dale Earnhardt's Daytona 500 win has unique place in NASCAR history

NASCAR

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Just a lap before drivers went back to green with 57.5 miles left in the 1998 Daytona 500, a voice came on the Dale Earnhardt in-car radio.

The voice bellowed something like this:

"Hey, Sunday Money, this is Captain Jack. Why don't you go out there and snag that big one today?"

Captain Jack was not a member of the Richard Childress Racing crew, but he had authorization to talk to Earnhardt on the radio. It was Bill France Jr., the son of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr.

When the head of NASCAR is almost needling or prodding the potentially greatest driver of all time to finally earn the trophy that had eluded him for so long, the celebration was apt to be one for the memory banks as much as the win was for the record books.

NASCAR might never see another win, another celebration by all those in the sport, as it did when Earnhardt won the 1998 Daytona 500. As he drove to Victory Lane, crew members of several teams lined up to slap his hand in congratulations.

"A lot can happen in the next 50 years, but I think that will go down in history as one of the most popular wins with all the race teams because everyone knew how many times Dale was so close to winning in the race and the Daytona 500," said team owner Richard Childress, who won his first Daytona 500 as a team owner that day.

"To be able to pull it off, everybody was happy to see Dale win that race. ... It was so important for this race on Dale's résumé. I knew it would not have been right for Dale Earnhardt not to have won the Daytona 500."

Earnhardt, a seven-time Cup champion, had come so close so many times. He was leading with three laps left in 1986 when he ran out of gas. In 1990, Earnhardt led 155 laps before he blew a tire while leading with a half-lap remaining. In 1993, he led 107 laps before being passed by Dale Jarrett in the trioval with a lap left. In 1997, he was battling for second with Jeff Gordon and flipped on the backstretch with 12 laps to go. He finished second in 1984, 1993, 1995 and 1996 and third in 1989.

He had won the summer Cup race at Daytona twice and 10 qualifying races -- including nine in a row -- entering the 1998 Daytona 500.

"Through the [exhibition] Clash, the duels, in practice, it didn't matter -- he was the dominant force through previous races, and then in the 500, he would do the same and it just wouldn't happen," said Earnhardt rival Jeff Gordon.

"Racing against him, it was evident he was the man. You raced with him, and you knew this guy is good [here]. It's not just his race car. He's doing a lot to make it that good. He had won everything at Daytona except the 500."

Earnhardt certainly didn't need encouragement from France Jr. to win the race. And it almost caused chaos in the Earnhardt pit stall. After calming down crew chief Larry McReynolds -- "I don't know who Captain Jack is but he is about to get the cussing of his life," McReynolds said in retelling the story -- Childress could only hope that Earnhardt would succeed this time around.

McReynolds at the time thought about a conversation he had with Childress a year earlier during the Daytona 500, McReynolds' first with Earnhardt.

"I looked at Richard with about 15 to go and we're still leading, 'What do you think?' and he said, 'I've been here way too many times before,'" McReynolds said.

"With about 10 to go, I understood what he was talking about. We were barrel-rolling down the backstretch."

There would be no barrel-rolling down the backstretch in 1998. No birds -- Earnhardt once struck a bird in the Daytona 500 -- or flat tires. But when the caution flag came out with a little more than one lap remaining and Earnhardt in the lead, no one on his team felt all that convinced he would capture the race, even though he just had to win the race to the line and then cruise under caution.

"We had won the Daytona 499, 498, 497 [in the past]," Childress said. "But this one, coming down to the very end of the race ... when the caution came out on the backstretch, back then you raced back and I didn't know if we were going to get crashed before we got back or what.

"We pulled it off."

The celebration after that win was one for the storybooks. Among the crew members who lined pit road were former crewmen who had worked with Earnhardt in his 19 previous Daytona 500 starts.

One of them decided he wasn't going to wait in line and ran over to the window.

Andy Petree, who won 15 races as Earnhardt's crew chief from 1993-95, nearly jumped into the Earnhardt car even though his driver, Ken Schrader, lost a chance to win on the caution in the final laps.

"He loved that racetrack and it was the biggest prize," Petree said. "When he won it, I wanted to see his face. He tried to deflect it and act like it wasn't a big deal, but I knew it was.

"I kind of saw the people lining up on the pit road and I bypassed them all and ran up to him. I looked into that window and saw the big ol' smile on his face. I had never seen him so genuinely happy -- and we had won a lot of races."

If Tony Stewart had won the Daytona 500 late in his career, he might have received a similar salute. But there doesn't seem to be a current veteran who could win that race and elicit that response.

"The disappointments coming with the way they did for Dale -- hitting the bird, the flat tire, the flip -- just so many different things, so many dramatic moments stood out that prevented him from winning it," said Gordon, who led 56 laps in that race, about the emotional response to the win in the NASCAR industry.

Richard Petty, who won 200 Cup races and was a member of the inaugural NASCAR Hall of Fame class along with Earnhardt, said he doesn't think NASCAR will see another win like that again. He can't remember any of his wins creating such a stir.

"Our wins, a lot of times, people expected us to win -- like the [New England] Patriots are supposed to win," Petty said. "Earnhardt was supposed to win, but not the 500. So, it made it different."

Because championships often were anticlimactic, as many were clinched before the season was over, Petty believes this might have been Earnhardt's biggest day.

"Probably that was just as important as winning the [seven] championships," Petty said. "He had been so close so many times."

The following weekend at Rockingham, Earnhardt went up to Petty crew chief Dale Inman.

"He grabbed me by the cheek and he was tough," Inman recalled. "He said, 'I'm with you now. I won the 500.'"

Inman, who won seven titles as a crew chief or team member, responded: "You're six behind."

They laughed, but the message was clear.

"It meant a lot to Dale, for sure," Inman said.

In Victory Lane that day were the two grandsons of Richard Childress, Austin and Ty Dillon. Both Austin and Ty now compete at the Cup level and can still see the photo of Victory Lane behind the car displayed in the RCR Museum.

"I remember doing the hat dance -- that was really cool," said Austin Dillon, who was 7 at the time. "I collected a lot of hats that day. The significance of everything? I was kind of celebrating with everybody, but I didn't really know what was going on."

But everyone else around him did.

"It was almost like watching your kids open up their presents on Christmas morning," McReynolds said. "It was that special."

Watching from home after a hard crash a day earlier, Dale Earnhardt Jr. could feel the excitement.

"That race is like Woodstock -- everyone says they were there even if they weren't," Earnhardt Jr. said. "But I wasn't. I think everybody was there but me. ... I was at home laying on the couch with a washcloth on my head.

"When it ended, I jumped up and went crazy, like everyone did, but I still wasn't feeling so great. Before long I was back on the couch, just taking it all in. I would [have] liked to have been there, obviously. But there was something cool about being able to watch it the same way that many of Dad's fans did. It was so awesome."

Ray Evernham was another one of the opposing crew members who went to shake Earnhardt's hand. The Jeff Gordon crew chief at first didn't know who had won considering his driver had led 58 laps but had an engine issue with three or four laps to go.

"I started to walk back to the pit area," Evernham said. "I saw everybody lining up. I jumped in line with them to shake his hand. [It was] an honor to have raced against him, just an honor to have raced against him.

"To be there, shake his hand, be part of that line, ... When I look back on it now, I know how important that was to Dale."

Evernham knew how important that race was well before Earnhardt won it. Teams back then could test whenever they wanted, and Dave Marcis had been testing Earnhardt's car since August.

McReynolds said that car, unlike others, didn't lose RPM in the turns, even in the wind tunnel simulation.

Was that the difference?

"He had Earnhardt driving it," Petree said. "That's what he had. Take it from somebody who knows."

The team felt a similar relief as Earnhardt.

"We were all more happy for him than we were for anything else," said Bobby Hutchens, a general manager at the organization at the time. "We all sit there and watch him blow the tire out, run out of gas, end up on his roof on the backstretch -- all the crazy things that could happen, and it was just finally good to see him succeed at that.

"You took a deep breath and let it all out. That is all you had."

It was apparent Earnhardt was ready to give all he had from the start. Glued to the dash was a lucky penny given to him by 6-year-old Wessa Miller prior to the race.

"He never came across to you guys [in the media] how much it was bothering him," McReynolds said. "He blew it off. But I knew. ... He was buckled in that car and I was about to put up the window net and he's sitting there in those bubble goggles and he pulled on my shirt.

"He said, 'You just keep me up front and keep me near the guy leading this thing, we get the white flag, his good day is going to go bad.' I knew he was going to take no prisoners."

^ Back to Top ^