This Page Dedicated to Dale

One o' 'em racin' deals

Around 9 AM, Dale separated himself from Rusty and Childress and strode over to the south chainlink surrounding Indianapolis Motor Speedway's Gasoline Alley. He hauled himself up on the pyramidal concrete support for a light pole and proceeded to sign autographs, accepting anything and everything the fans could pass over or through the fence.

He was shortly joined by Davey and Rusty who stationed themselves on poles to the east. When Ricky came over, Dale hollered out, "Get up here, Rudd." With Ricky and Dale sharing a pole, and Davey and Rusty signing and talking, thousands of fans lined up just to watch, knowing they'd never get up to the fence. Ernie and Darrell joined them. What a show.

I'm thinking they were there for close to an hour. A news reporter friend suggests it was closer to 90 minutes. An hour or an hour and a half hanging by one arm. A year later, more of the teams were there for the official "tire tests," and the crowd was estimated at a hundred thousand -- to watch these guys run laps. Petty was seated at a table, signing autographs. When NASCAR came fullscale in 1994 for the Brickyard 400, it proceeded to draw the largest crowds in NASCAR history. It was Dale and Richard who were teaching NASCAR how to market this product in open wheel country.

One of the things that separated Dale from other drivers was his almost immediate understanding that, "It was just one of those racing deals." He'd just shake his head once at the microphone and say, "It happens." He was most likely to blame the restrictor plate or the track conditions than to blame a driver. Sometimes, like with Eddie Cheever at the IROC, he would "play around" with his reputation, but bottom line was, "I'll race with you any day."

If Dale could, I firmly believe he'd be saying, "It was just one of those racing deals."

We love him because he took as good as he gave. We wanted a driver who made the chancy move, diving to the inside, across traffic, to get the momentum, or made the "Earnhardt repass" after being overtaken on a banked corner, or made that black number 3 three lanes wide as he was holding them off coming out of turn four and heading for the flag. If we hadn't wanted that, we could have had our pick, including some who will probably get huge ovations at driver introductions.

We, as Earnhardt fans, have to model his acceptance of responsibility and his reluctance to point fingers at his colleagues. We have to shake our head and say, "It was one of those racing deals." And never forget him.