Earnhardt Gives The Daytona 500 A Magic Moment

Prettier sights sit among the scrapheaps at many an auto graveyard than the figure cut by the legendary black No. 3 Monte Carlo on Sunday. With a dozen laps left in one of history’s most thrilling Daytona 500s, fans needed only to look at the formerly awe-inspiring stock car to know that instincts alone drove Dale Earnhardt back inside the mangled mass of metal.

In seconds, a back-straightaway incident sent his car sideways, flipped it up and over and out of contention for the checkered flag. By the time it regained its wheels, the chain reaction had cut the field of serious contenders from six to three. The wreck eliminated Earnhardt’s chance to win his first Daytona 500 in 19 tries.

The man actually had entered an ambulance when it struck him that the car still might run. Chasing his eighth Winston Cup championship and believing each lap he completed would help him amass points, Earnhardt didn’t think twice.

Back in the car he climbed. Into the pits he eased the maimed vehicle. And then back onto the track went Dale Earnhardt and the No. 3.

Instinctively, he had to push the car as far as it would go. Racing runs on that premise, that come-hell-or-high-water underpinning that Earnhardt personified to earn himself the right to serve as the most enduring image of a Daytona 500 packed with drama and delights.

With his crash and return, Earnhardt went to extremes. And therein lies racing’s fascination.

NASCAR could not have scripted a better season-opener at Daytona International Speedway. Every extreme found its place somewhere in the 200-lap spectacle that took almost 3-1/2 hours, but seemed to fly by much faster. Drivers took turns dominating. Nobody seemed able to sew it up.

At times, it threatened to end like one of those old Southwest Conference football seasons - in a five-way tie for first.

I don’t know how many stock-car races it normally would take to convert an uninitiated observer to an avid fan. But this one by itself would have done it.

You had plenty of side-by-side racing, with three-wide adventures, a record 23 cars finishing on the lead lap, and stunning performances in victory and defeat. A 10-car crash with four laps remaining forced the race to end under a caution, which seemed anticlimactic, but reassured fans of racing’s ability to throw a curve.

Jeff Gordon, 25, won to become the youngest Daytona 500 champion in history. He and Hendrick Motorsports teammates Terry Labonte - the defending Winston Cup champion - and Ricky Craven swept the top three spots for Chevrolet. It was a wrenchingly emotional triumph for the three-car operation owned by Rick Hendrick, who suffers from a rare form of leukemia and could not attend the race.

Gordon had to recover from a flat tire on lap 110 and an unscheduled pit stop that plunged him to 31st place. But the 1995 Winston Cup champion later said it did not surprise him to see Earnhardt’s No. 3 back on the track after the wreck.

“Never count that guy out,” Gordon said after the race. “He’s made of steel… . I think we’ll see that determination for the rest of his career.”

The image that will not go away will be that of the No. 3 car and Earnhardt, who has won 29 races at the Daytona International Speedway. Knowing he had just run his streak to 0-19 in Daytona 500s, Earnhardt did not give up. He completed 195 laps and finished 31st. As it happened, his decision to return to the race did not collect him any extra points. The next-closest finisher completed just 188 laps.

But instincts told him what to do.

“I looked over there and I said, ‘Man, the wheels ain’t knocked off that car yet,’ ” Earnhardt said. “I went back over there and told the guy in the car to fire it up. It fired up. I said, ‘Get out, I’ve got to go.’

“You’ve got to get all the laps you can.”

Your best instincts tell you that you’ve got to love the simplicity of that concept.