One of the most enduring moments in NASCAR history was 20 years in the making.
In a spontaneous show of celebration, the frontstretch of Daytona International Speedway was lined with members of practically all 43 teams that started the 1998 Daytona 500, crowding pit lane to such a degree that the winner was forced to put his right-side tires on the edge of the infield grass.
Entering 1998, Dale Earnhardt had 70 wins in 574 starts, but one race was glaringly missing: the Daytona 500. Finally, in his 20th Daytona 500, Earnhardt won the race that eluded him for so many years.
“The lasting image for me of that day is (Earnhardt) coming down pit road and getting all the congratulations from all the teams,” son Dale Earnhardt Jr. recalled ahead of the 25th anniversary of this iconic win. “Every time I think about it, it makes me emotional because there are so many amazing people in this sport, but nobody’s ever received that type of pat on the back or whatever you want to call that moment. No competitor has ever had … pretty much the entire industry, drop that competitive guard and just go over and go, ‘Man, I’m happy for you. And boy, you’ve earned this handshake from me.’ ”
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Earnhardt led 69 of the final 70 laps in 1998. Looking at the box score alone, one might be tempted to believe there was not a lot of drama associated with the race, but the drama was preloaded.
Just the previous season, Earnhardt was involved in a rollover crash while battling for the lead. In that race, his car was on the hook and he was walking to the ambulance for a ride to the infield care center when he noticed all four tires on his No. 3 Goodwrench Chevrolet were inflated.
He demanded the wrecker driver lower his car and hand it back over. With a smashed-in roof, Earnhardt drove back to the pits, the crew repaired the car and it was running at the end of the race. He finished 31st, a tough-as-nails performance that made the next year’s win all the sweeter.
“I think the whole industry breathed the sigh of relief,” NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton said about Earnhardt’s 1998 win. “He had gotten so close so many times, won so many different races in Daytona, but finally had gotten the Daytona 500. And all the championships and every accomplishment that Dale Sr. had, the only piece missing in his puzzle was Daytona 500.
“Everybody was wondering on the last couple of laps what was going to go wrong? And nothing did.”
Moments before they lined pit road, the crews and drivers not only wondered what might happen, they actively plotted a way to be the catalyst for Earnhardt’s 20th Daytona 500 loss.
Then, after the checkered flag waved on the 200th lap, they put their competitive differences aside to pay tribute to the seven-time champion who finally crossed a major entry off his bucket list.
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“How incredible was the spontaneity of everybody up and down pit road recognizing the fact that Dale Sr. had just won the Daytona 500?” Helton continued. “You couldn’t have scripted it. You couldn’t have told them and said, ‘All right, everybody. Go down pit road.’ No. It was organically just done. Maybe two or three teams did it, and everybody said, ‘Well, let’s go join them.’ That line created itself in time for Dale Sr. to come down through there.”
The ones that got away
In the years leading up to the 1998 Daytona 500, Earnhardt won every stock car race the speedway offered. He had 30 previous wins there, having won his qualification race 11 times, the Clash six times, seven Busch Series races, a pair of Pepsi 400s over the summer and the International Race of Champions four times.
He had at least one race win in Daytona in nine previous seasons.
Before crashing in 1997, Earnhardt had a 10-race top-10 streak. In those races, he finished second three times (1993, 1995 and 1996; he also finished second in the 1984 Daytona 500).
Earnhardt may have well sensed he was running out of time. It wasn’t just the losses, but it was the how and when he lost them that made 1998 so dramatic. In 19 previous starts, Earnhardt lost the Daytona 500 in every way imaginable.
In 1986, Earnhardt blew an engine with three laps remaining in the race. In 1990, he could almost see the checkered flag before he ran over a piece of debris entering Turn 3 of the final lap. Earnhardt even hit a seagull in 1991 while leading, which damaged the aerodynamics of his Chevrolet.
With 10 laps remaining in 1998, CBS Sports’ Mike Joy pointed out that only 17 drivers who led with 10 to go in the 39 prior Daytona 500s had failed to win. Earnhardt accounted for four of those.
“For us to win that race, it was like for Dale taking that load off of his shoulders,” team owner Richard Childress said. “Because he wanted to win it. He had won everything at Daytona in the past, 125s, 150s, the Busch Clash and all of the different races.
“But to win the Daytona 500, it was so special for him. And just for us to be a part of it was special because I knew what it meant to have the Daytona 500 on his resume.”
If the memory of all those losses were not enough, Earnhardt and crew had more immediate concerns. They were competing with a backup engine that had been installed just that morning.
“It was almost a perfect week down there,” Earnhardt’s crew chief Larry McReynolds said. “It’s almost like we could … do no wrong, fastest in every practice, won the (qualification) race, just every day the car got better. And then here in the last practice on Saturday, we have an engine issue, and we put a brand-new engine in there race morning.”
A caution on Lap 174 set up the finish. Earnhardt bolted to the lead and paced the field for all but one lap when his teammate Mike Skinner edged him at the finish line for a brief moment.
Even Bill France Jr., the CEO of NASCAR in 1998, was an Earnhardt fan that day.
When Childress hired McReynolds in 1997, he told him that France and Earnhardt were friends. France even had one of the RCR radios. Affectionately known as “Captain Jack,” France would occasionally check in under caution. Since the 1997 season had not gone particularly well, with Earnhardt failing to win a race for the first time since 1981, France had not checked in often during McReynolds’ tenure.
“All of a sudden,” McReynolds said, “we are getting ready to get the one to go, and somebody keys the radio and says, ‘Hey, Sunday Money, this is Captain Jack.’ And I’m like, ‘Who in the hell is Captain Jack, and what is he doing on our radio?’
“And I’m about to give Captain Jack the cussing of Captain Jack’s life. Richard sees me, and he about tackles me and he is like, ‘No.’ ‘Oh, that’s Captain Jack.’ And all he said was, ‘Hey, Sunday Money, what do you think about going out there and snagging that big one today?’ And Dale came back and said, ‘Captain Jack, I am going to do all I can.’ ”
And he did.
