Earnhardt: ‘! ! !’ Daytona 500 Quest Fulfilled

At last.

Dale Earnhardt ended two decades of frustration in the Daytona 500 Sunday, scoring a heart-pounding victory to stop the two most maddening streaks of his racing career.

Earnhardt had won 30 races at the 2.5-mile mother church of stock car racing, but never Winston Cup racing’s biggest event, the season-opening 500. He also had gone 59 races, almost two full seasons, without winning anywhere.

Both streaks were washed away in his 20th start in a race he had led four times before with 10 laps to go, only to lose in heart-rending fashion.

“All right!” Earnhardt said as he popped his head out of the black No. 3 Chevrolet in Victory Lane. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

Earnhardt’s average speed for winning the race was 172.712 mph, making this the third fastest Daytona 500.

His average speed for his trip down pit road to Victory Lane, though, was one handshake per second. In a remarkable show of respect, members of virtually every team lined up to congratulate the seven-time Winston Cup champion on his 71st career victory.

“I cried a little bit in the race car on the way to the checkered flag,” Earnhardt said. “Well, maybe not cried, but at least my eyes watered up.

“Everybody over the last week has said this is your year. Man, they were just so adamant about it. They knew something I didn’t, I reckon.”

Earnhardt’s victory, worth a Winston Cup record $1,059,105, was assured one lap early.

He took the lead by passing Richard Childress Racing teammate Mike Skinner in Turn 4 of Lap 140, and held it after stopping for fuel and right-side tires under yellow with less than 30 laps to go.

After the green flag flew on Lap 178, Earnhardt was chased like the rabbit at a dog track by a swarming nest of challengers determined to deny him this long-awaited moment.

On Lap 199 of 200, Jimmy Spencer’s Ford smacked into John Andretti’s Pontiac coming out of Turn 2. Andretti spun, collecting Lake Speed’s Ford as it did, and brought out the third caution of the day.

Earnhardt just needed to win the race back to the caution and white flags. Coming out of Turn 4, he saw Rick Mast’s lapped Ford rolling in the inside lane and used it as a blocker. That left Bobby Labonte to squeeze past a surprisingly strong Jeremy Mayfield for second, and popped the cork on a celebration Earnhardt fans have been awaiting for 20 years.

The first 125 laps of Sunday’s race were run under the green flag, stringing the field out as much as you ever see when restrictor plates are bolted on Winston Cup cars. But after Ward Burton’s Pontiac shredded a tire and the leaders made pit stops on the ensuing yellow flag, the game was on.

Earnhardt and Skinner jousted with another pair of teammates - Mayfield and Rusty Wallace in Penske Racing’s Fords - the rest of the way. Others - Labonte, Jeff Gordon, Ernie Irvan and a game Ken Schrader among them - poked their way in and out of the fray at times.

Two more factors, the need for a final pit stop and darkening clouds that threatened rain, only added to the building drama.

Pit stops became a moot point on Lap 173 when Robert Pressley and John Andretti spun on the backstretch to bring out the yellow flag. The leaders came in and Earnhardt’s crew got him back out first.

After that, it was all in the driver’s hands.

“We just kept playing our cards,” Earnhardt said. “They would go this way and I would go with them. What I was hoping was they’d stay close in line and it got down to five to go and they started racing behind me. That made me feel better because I could pick who I wanted to dice with.”

When he saw the yellow and white flags flying together, Earnhardt knew the victory was his. Unless, of course, his car quit on him as he made the final lap under yellow.

Hey, stranger things have happened to him here.

“It was my time,” Earnhardt said. “I have been passed on the last lap, I have run out of gas and I have cut a tire.

“I knew we were coming back to the checkered. I started going slow, but then I decided I would go fast because I wanted to get on back around there. I don’t care how we won it, but we won it.”

Finally.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: LITTLE 7th Spokane’s Chad Little, driving one of only three Thunderbirds in the field, worked his way as high as fourth just before the halfway point of the race before finishing seventh. Little collected $126,980 for his efforts.