Don't retire the No. 3 -- let it return to glory

By Jim Huber, Turner Sports Interactive
March 27, 2001
9:51 AM EST (1451 GMT)

My mind was made up. Almost. And then along came Sunday at Bristol.

JIm Huber

So many of you reacted immediately to the death of Dale Earnhardt with fervent pleas for NASCAR to retire the No. 3 that I knee-jerked along with you. It made sense, a perfect and perpetual honor.

After all, isn't the sport all about its numbers? The drivers themselves have a way of speaking that is almost code.

"You know, I was rockin' along okay, 'til the 77 car tangled with the 5 up ahead and then the 24 gets sideways and nicks the 8."

You know what he's talking about and he knows what he's talking about but in black and white, it's a strange and lyrical language, isn't it?

So we take the 3 out of that equation, never to see it adorn anything in motion again? Makes perfect sense. Or it did…until Sunday.

Suddenly there was the 21 and the 43 locked in mortal combat, door panel to door panel, and it was the 1970s again. Suddenly, it wasn't Elliott Sadler and John Andretti. It was David Pearson and Richard Petty. Suddenly, it was the sport's history. Suddenly, it was the two men who sit atop NASCAR's all-time victory list.

And suddenly, retiring No. 3 didn't make quite as much sense.

Sunday, we were closing our eyes a bit and reliving the sport's storied past. The fabled battles between those two numbers continue now, simply with different hands on the wheels.

Imagine now, two or three decades gone by, and there is that No. 3 again, bumper to bumper with No. 21 or even neck-and-neck with No. 43.

You think of those glorious times gone by. If the number is simply on a flag hanging from a pole in an infield somewhere, it would be just another flapping symbol. To allow it to live on becomes more of a tribute to the man who made it so famous.

Old people retire. Memories never do.

Jim Huber's column appears every Tuesday on NASCAR.com. The opinions listed here are solely those of the writer.