NASCAR Nostalgia: Two Deaths on Feb. 18, 2001

Eight years ago today, NASCAR lost its greatest leader, its greatest driver and its greatest personality, Dale Earnhardt.

Rather that delve into a memorial piece as so many others have done today, I feel the need to honor another important aspect of the day.

Eight years ago today, my love for NASCAR died.

I realize that is a harsh and cold think to say, and I honestly didn’t realize it at the time. In truth, however, that is precisely what happened.

It was very similar to your first real heartbreak.

You hold on for a long time, hoping to rekindle once what was so powerful, but in the end you realize it will never be the same. That is precisely what happened for me when Dale Earnhardt died.

I am not here to argue that the changes the sport has seen would have never happened had he survived that last lap. For all we know the extraordinary businessman that he was could have seen the benefits.

What really died that day was the intimacy of the sport.

Until the 2001 season, NASCAR was our little secret. Listening to the announcers on the telecast was often like listening to your friends discusses a race.

One could relate to the drivers and teams and when they were having a down stretch, you were down with them.

Newer NASCAR fans can’t imagine the depth of which we related to the sport. And you understood they all had faults because, in the end, they were the same man as you and I. They were adorned with sponsors that you knew and used and remained loyal to because your driver drove for them.

That isn’t really the case today.

February 18, 2001 brought the national spotlight to our beloved sport. While it has brought enormous good to the sport, it has rid it of the intimacy and in that way the sport really did die on that day, on that lap.The great Dale Earnhardt, whom every thought was invincible, died on that lap.

In reality it was almost like the day you found out Santa Claus wasn’t real. The unabated joy was now over, replaced with a harsh reality.

So, today I remember Dale and I also remember the sport, which once existed. Sad and complacent in the fact that I will never see either of those two again.