Ed's Superspeedway



Dale Earnhardt was pronounced dead from massive injuries even while his driver, Michael Waltrip, was being interviewed in the Daytona press box after his first career victory in 463 starts, according to NASCAR.com. “My heart is hurting right now,” Waltrip said in his postrace interview. “I would rather be any place right this moment than here. “I want to be with him to try to help. It’s so painful.” He said he learned of the accident from driver Ken Schrader, a close friend and hunting companion of Earnhardt. “He came to Victory Lane to give me a heads-up, and that’s all I know,” Waltrip said before quickly ending his interview. “I haven’t been able to find out anything more than Schrader told me. “I have to go.” The accident happened a half-mile from the finish of the NASCAR season opener when Earnhardt, running fourth, hit Sterling Marlin, hit the wall in the high-banked fourth turn and was smacked hard by Schrader. “We were three deep and he hit me,” Marlin said. “Then he turned around.” It was the second major wreck in five years in the race for Earnhardt. He flipped wildly on the backstretch near the end of the race in 1997 but was not seriously hurt. He came back to win the race the next year on his 20th try. Earnhardt is the leader among active Winston Cup drivers with 76 career victories. The crash was not as spectacular as an 18-car wreck 25 laps earlier that took out 18 cars. Tony Stewart was injured in that accident, but the track said he did not have life-threatening injuries. Stewart had a concussion. Earnhardt was a factor in the race throughout, and spent the final laps in close proximity to his son and Waltrip, trying to block Marlin. The Dodge driver had just passed Earnhardt, who was trying to get back by him on the low side of the track when there was slight contact that set his Chevrolet spinning up the 31-degree banking. It turned to the right and hit the wall, and Schrader could not avoid hitting it. Both cars slowly began to slide down the banking to the bottom of the track as the rest of the field race by, but there was no further contact. Earnhardt Jr. quickly left the postrace celebration for Waltrip, and sprinted to the infield care center to be with his father. It took several minutes to get the elder Earnhardt out of the car, and he was quickly taken to Halifax Hospital. The race was the season-opening event for NASCAR, which had three driver deaths last year. Busch Series driver Adam Petty, the grandson of stock car great Richard Petty, was killed in May in Loudon, N.H., in May. Two months later, Winston Cup driver Kenny Irwin also was killed at New Hampshire International Speedway. NASCAR truck series driver Tony Roper was killed in October at Texas Motor Speedway.





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    This site is NOT affiliated with NASCAR® or Dale Earnhardt, and is NOT an official news page. NASCAR®, and Winston Cup® are registered trademarks of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, Inc. ®, is a registered trademark of D.E.Inc.®. Ed's Superspeedway is not affiliated or endorsed by NASCAR® Or D.E.I.® and is not an official website or news page. This page is for entertainment purposes only. Accuracy cannot be 100% guaranteed and all stats are unofficial. The information has been compiled from a variety of sources such as: Other Internet Sites, Newspapers/Publications, Television shows/races/reports, and inside/anonymous sources. This site was started to pool info I could find and make some sense of these rumors/news/changes/rules etc... happening in Winston Cup. NOTE: The opinions expressed in any editorial/article I link to are not my own, but I present them in the interest of giving my readers a variety of points of views.



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