Dale Earnhardt: It Has Been Seven Years Since I Last Saw Him

Fog had covered the speedway. Morning practice was delayed about two hours.

Still, I was there early, excited and on a mission.

With the help of Penske Racing, I had secured a garage pass for the Southern 500 at Darlington. My first visit to the inside of NASCAR.

Looming in the distance were three figures. One of those figures was my mission. It was Dale Earnhardt.

Dale Earnhardt was a name I first heard right about the time I graduated from high school. By the time I was starting college, he was the Winston Cup Rookie of the Year.

15 years and seven championships later, this man I had only read about and seen on TV, was standing right in front of me.

I had thought about this moment over and over again. A moment some can only dream about. I had thought how I would react, what would I say, what would we discuss, what would I take from this?

What I did was choke.

My mouth opened, but nothing came out. I remember holding out my hand to shake his, at the same moment realizing the arm attached to that hand was holding a camera, a camera that was now falling towards the pavement.

In my other hand was a picture. Earnhardt took it from my hand, autographed it, and was gone. I wasn’t even sure he looked at me.

I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach.

His autograph was nothing more than a scribble. He had ruined my picture, and I had ruined my camera.

I didn’t go back to the track that weekend. Earnhardt didn’t fare well in the race either.

It’s hard to understand how or why events change a person’s perspective about another person.

We all have heroes, mine had let me down. I still took pictures of Earnhardt and his car when I could, but this event would stick with me for a long time.

Celebrating 50 years of racing, NASCAR kicked off a year long celebration at Daytona in February, 1998. What a kick off it would be.

After 20 years of trying, Dale Earnhardt would finally capture his first, and only, Daytona 500 win.

After the checkered flag flew, I stood on pit road, an obscure man with a camera, my hero making his way forward, one congratulatory hand at a time.

The winning car of the Daytona 500 remains on display at Daytona USA until the next Daytona 500.

This induction event takes place on Monday, following the race. It is wall to wall media frenzy. I was lucky to be invited.

Following the event, Earnhardt was gracious enough to stay around, shake some hands, take pictures and sign autographs.

When I am taking pictures, I always carry a shoulder bag for extra equipment, at that time extra film, and usually some developed pictures I had taken over the weekend. This day was no different.

As I approached Earnhardt, I had put my camera on my left shoulder, was certainly a lot more poised than our first meeting, and figured I would extend my right hand, shake his hand and say congratulations.

Except this time, he surprised me.    

His hand shake was strong and secure. He actually made eye contact and then, my world shook. “New camera?” he asked.  “Want me to sign something”?

I didn’t choke; I reached into my bag and pulled out a picture of his car. “Nice picture,” he said, “You take it?” “Yes sir,” I answered. He looked up at me, cracked a smile, and finished the business at hand.

Earnhardt had always been known for his memory of the most obscure events, or people who had touched his life in the smallest of ways.

The small town of Kannapolis could easily be a cover for The Saturday Evening Post. A landscape dotted with cafés, department stores and small full service gas stations that still check your air.

One of those gas stations had some rough years. Earnhardt had gotten gas, tires, nuts, bolts, and lots of other car parts from there when he was in his early racing years. Usually, without charge.

One day a man walks in and buys four brand new tires. Over the next few weeks, several more men would come in and buy new tires. All of them NASCAR drivers, all of them friends of Earnhardt.  

Did Dale remember me and my broken camera? Was it the fact that I really did have a new camera that day? I guess I will never know. I guess it doesn’t really matter.

Its strange how heros seemingly let you down, but they always return for a rescue.  

It was another spectacular Daytona 500 day. The pinnacle of speed-weeks 2001 was about to get started.  

I hadn’t got many pictures of Earnhardt or his car that weekend. It seemed his son Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was getting most of the attention.

Driver introductions were finished, the race was only moments away from getting started. Dale was talking to Mike Helton. I stood about 30 feet away, shooting shot after shot of his back. I knew, soon, he would turn around and walk the final 10 feet to his car. When he did, I would get five or six frontal shots easily.

When Dale turned around, it seemed like he stood there for an eternity. His stare like a laser into the lens. I squeezed the shudder on my camera, it captured the last three frames on the roll, I was out of film, and Dale was now climbing into his car.