Win Gave Him Something To Cry About

They had him, if not buried, at least infirm.

If not retired, at least ineffective.

Some would have had us believe that when you spoke of stock car racing’s future you spoke of Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton and Jeremy Mayfield, and when you spoke of its past you spoke of Richard Petty, Harry Gant and Dale Earnhardt.

Dale Earnhardt had been a good racer.

He had won 70 Winston Cup races.

But he had not won such a race since March 1996. And he had never won the Daytona 500. And how can a driver claim to have had a great career, if he never had won his sport’s biggest race?

Dale Earnhardt, almost 47, had heard the question, it seemed, all of his career. Perhaps he had even asked it himself.

Sunday - with something in his eyes - The Man in Black, at once stock car racing’s most beloved and most disliked driver, put those questions and the entire field of the Daytona 500 behind him.

And when he took the checkered flag, after 20 years of trying, Dale Earnhardt did something that macho men seldom admit to.

“We cried a little bit,” he said. “Our eyes watered up… . It was pretty awesome.”

A couple of days ago, he had warned that he was not yet a part of racing history. And he talked then of his eyes, too. But he said nothing about tears.

“Everybody saw that look in (John) Elway’s eyes,” he said after winning one of the two 125-mile qualifying races Thursday.

“Look in my eyes. I’m going out to win the Daytona 500… .”

And Sunday, just like the guy in the hair dye commercials, Earnhardt wiped away the years. Gone was the gray, gone were the wrinkles, gone was the inability to win the big one.< Gone was the doubt, not in his mind, but in the minds of so many others about his ability to win again, to get his car in front of the young bucks and to keep it there.

Yes, Virginia, there is an Intimidator. He’s the one with tears in his eyes.

“I wasn’t thinking about what could happen. I was focused on what I had to do… . That was my focus until someone turned me over or we got to the finish line.”

And when John Andretti and Lake Speed got their cars together on Lap 199, Earnhardt urged his car to the start-finish line a couple of lengths ahead of Bobby Labonte, then ran the final 2 miles under caution while something filled his eyes.

“I don’t think I really cried,” he said.

But he did have trouble seeing through the blur.

“I got pretty excited after I took the checkered flag,” Earnhardt said. “Gosh, it was a great day! Gosh, it was a great win!

“We won. We proved we can win the Daytona 500, and we won’t have to answer that question anymore.”

At times in his career Dale Earnhardt was all bluster, a man with a chip on his shoulder. Timid men are not nicknamed The Intimidator.

But Sunday he showed another side, a side his fellow drivers knew was there all along.

“We’ve been trying to do this for 20 years,” Earnhardt said.

“We won seven championships, but winning the first Daytona 500 after so many years coming here, it’s just unbelievable… . All the drivers congratulated me. All the teams down there, guys were giving me high-fives and shaking my hand.”

Rusty Wallace, who finished fifth Sunday and is winless in 16 Daytona 500s, said: “I’m happy for Dale because he’s tried so hard and so long, but I’m telling him right now: Next year is our turn.”

Sunday was Dale Earnhardt’s finest moment; he won his sport’s biggest event with grit and heart and determination, then celebrated it with style, class and grace.

“I said my prayers today,” Earnhardt said. “I thanked the good Lord after the race and I thank anybody who touched my life in racing, who helped me to get where I am.”

On his way to victory lane, Earnhardt did a celebratory spin in the infield grass.

Hours later, as dark settled on Daytona International Speedway, fans were on their hands and knees digging up chunks of turf as souvenirs of the day Dale Earnhardt buried the rumors that his career was dead.