CUP: The Earnhardt Legacy – A Safer Ride

The NASCAR killing fields are no more.

Since the last moments of the last lap of the first Daytona 500 of the 21st century, there have been no driver deaths in NASCAR. Indeed, there have been no significant injuries.

This is the legacy of Dale Earnhardt Sr., whose death in the 2001 Daytona 500 accelerated NASCAR’s search for safer cars, safer driver seats, safer helmets, safer tracks, safer EVERYTHING.

Earnhardt’s death was the last in a series of four fatal accidents that cut NASCAR to its core. Adam Petty, grandson of the sport’s legendary king, Richard Petty, died in a crash at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in May 2000. Two months later, Kenny Irwin Jr. lost his life in a similar accident at the same facility. In October of the same year, Tony Roper was killed in a Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway.

Then, The Man. Considered by many – probably even himself – to be invincible, Earnhardt died a few minutes after slamming into the fourth turn wall in a pack of traffic on the final lap of the 2001 500. A strange footnote to that black day – although the giant and wickedly dangerous race track built by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. had claimed dozens of lives, Earnhardt was the first driver killed in its marquee race.

Since that dark season, since Teresa Earnhardt stood in front of a memorial service crowd in Charlotte, N.C., and whispered the words, “Thank you,” to hundreds who had gathered to mourn her husband, there have been no deaths in NASCAR’s major national series.

Of the things the sport will remember most about Earnhardt – the fiercely facing forward number 3 on the sides of his car, the sly grin and the bushy mustache, the gunslinger’s walk through the garage area, the stacks of victories and championships, none perhaps should be more important than what, ironically, he accomplished in death.

Earnhardt’s loss put NASCAR under an unforgiving national spotlight, and its attempts to put a safer foundation under its racing, labeled glacially slow by some, picked up steam with the death of the sport’s central figure. NASCAR had steadily been moving away from its mostly old-school and insular approaches to technological advances in the arena of safety, and the Earnhardt tragedy underlined and reinforced those efforts.

Since February 2001, NASCAR has undergone a safety revolution.

Head-and-neck restraints, designed to limit the whipping of the neck in head-on crashes (a violent reaction that occurred in the Earnhardt, Petty and Irwin accidents), became mandatory in 2002. They had been optional in prior seasons, and a handful of NASCAR drivers, impressed by what they had seen and heard from drivers in other series, had begun to test them.

SAFER barriers, so-called “soft walls” introduced at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the 2002 Indianapolis 500, were added – eventually – to every NASCAR track and have lessened the impact of hundreds of crashes.

Full-face helmets became mandatory during the 2005 season. Some drivers were very reluctant to abandon the open-face helmets that many had worn for years. Earnhardt died wearing one.

NASCAR spent several years developing what it called the Car of Tomorrow, and the new vehicle debuted in 2007. It was not a competitive marvel, but its safety advances were considerable – a larger cockpit area, a driver’s seat moved closer to the center and away from the door and “crush panels” of absorbent material added to the frames.

The grand irony of all of the changes is that Earnhardt almost certainly would have opposed every one. Down to the very last argument.

“He might have slowed down some of the advances because he was so hard-headed,” said Ty Norris, general manager of Earnhardt’s racing team in 2001. “He would have held his ground, and it might have put NASCAR in a tough position. He probably would have eventually given in, but he might have retired over it, too.

“He wasn’t going to wear a full-face helmet. He hated them. He had this theory that the weight of the helmet was too great for your neck to handle in an accident. He wasn’t going to wear a HANS device. He hated them.”