Chapter 21: The Intimidator

February 18, 2001, Apple Orchard Bed-and-Breakfast near Montpelier, Vermont

🎤 Steve

“Thanks for letting me watch the race today,” I said to Katy at our early-morning breakfast.

“Once you said Bill Elliott had pole position, I was sure you’d ask!”

“It’s been a long time since he’s had a really good season. He won the Cup and then the rules changed. Stephie always said NASCAR was trying to screw the Elliotts because they could build better engines than anyone else. Ernie was a flat-out genius in that regard.”

“Dad?” Birgit asked. “Did you talk to Jesse?”

“Yes, last night. They won, and so did St. Rita, so they’ll meet next Saturday for the citywide championship. If they win that, then they have two regional single-elimination games, and if they win those, they play for the State championship.”

“Not bad for a team with a Freshman goalie,” Tom observed. “Nicholas is really looking forward to playing on that team in a couple of years.”

“And Jesse is looking forward to having him on the team,” I replied. “They’re losing some good players and we have no idea how good any of the players we’ll get from the private school are.”

“Hockey just can’t compete with basketball and football,” Kurt replied. “There’s a good chance the two Oak Park High Schools will end up with a single combined team in the next few years. They’ve had to do it before, but then they had a surge of players.”

“Mikey and Nicole would love that,” I replied.

“What time is the race?” Amy asked.

“1:00pm,” I replied. “I’m really hoping Bill has a good day. It’s his 50th pole, though I have to say I’m a bit unnerved by him driving a Dodge!”

“YOU drove a Dodge!” Kara protested. “And a Chevy before that!”

“True, but you don’t see me rooting for Ironhead or any of the other Chevy drivers! I’m a Ford man when it comes to racing. BMW doesn’t compete in Winston Cup!”

“Your affinity for the blue oval came from Stephie,” Bethany observed. “I’m guessing you’re a ‘Dodge man’ now?”

“I’m an Elliott man,” I replied. “But the sport is changing in ways I don’t like. The only thing holding back complete disaster right now is that the France family is intimidated by The Man in Black. Brian France is a jackass, and his dad wasn’t much better. Things really started going to hell when Brian’s grandfather, ‘Big Bill’ France, died nine years ago. I think long before now, Stephie would have taken out a contract on the France family if she were still alive.”

“What does Jason think?” Tom asked.

“Jason likes building race cars,” I replied. “He’s not thrilled, but there really isn’t a better option for him anywhere in the world. And he’s on a team that wins a lot. Bill, on the other hand, hasn’t won since Darlington in 1994.”

“Think he’s got a chance today?”

“He’s on the pole and the car looks good, but DEI has three really fast cars and they can all work together.”

“DEI?” Kurt asked.

“Dale Earnhardt Incorporated. He’s driving his usual black #3 Goodwrench car, though for Richard Childress; his son, Dale Junior, is driving the red #8 Budweiser car; and Michael Waltrip is driving the blue and yellow #15 NAPA car. DEI also has Steve Park in the #1, but he’s not nearly as fast as the other two DEI cars, or Dale himself.”

“Who’s driving for the team Jason works for?”

“Terry Labonte and Jeff Gordon. They also have Jerry Nadeau who used to drive for Bill, and who out-qualified the other two, and starts right in front of Dale Junior and Ironhead.”

“It’s so funny you can’t say his name!” Bethany observed.

“I did when I said the team name!” I protested.

“I don’t think I’ve heard you do that for any other driver.”

I shrugged, “I’m not the only one. Ironhead has several nicknames, including the ones I’ve used and the one I alluded to - The Intimidator. Those are used so often on TV that they’re just second nature. And most other drivers don’t get nicknames that stick. There are a few - ‘Awesome Bill’; Darrell Waltrip was ‘Jaws’; Richard Petty was ‘The King’; a long time ago there were ‘Tiny’ Lund and ‘Fireball’ Roberts. Other than those, none ever really stuck the way Earnhardt’s monikers have. See! There! I said his name!”

Everyone laughed, and as breakfast was finished, we helped clean up the private dining area, then Birgit helped Katy and Amy get breakfast on the table for the guests in the main dining room, while the rest of us relaxed in front of the fireplace with coffee or tea. Later that morning, we had a private sauna, then had lunch. After lunch, Tom, Kurt, and I settled into couches in the TV room to watch the race.

Bill led the first lap, but that turned out to be his only lead of the day. Sterling Marlin passed him on lap two, but then Dale Junior got ahead for a lap, before things settled down a bit and Marlin took the lead on lap five and held it for sixteen laps. There was a bit more shuffling, and the lead changed hands several times, with Ironhead leading the most laps before a caution came out at lap 49 because Jeff Purvis bounced off the wall between the third and fourth turns.

After wholesale pitstops, the green flag came out and there was a long green-flag run which resulted in probably the funniest thing I’d ever seen or heard in NASCAR. On lap 87, Ironhead and a rookie, Kurt Busch, made door-to-door contact in turn four while battling for fifth place. Going through the tri-oval, driving in excess of 180MPH, Ironhead stuck his hand out the window and gave Busch the middle finger, and announcer Mike Joy remarked that the Intimidator was simply telling Busch, ‘Kurt, you’re number 1’! All three of us, along with a few other people who had filtered in to watch the race, broke up laughing.

“Classic Ironhead!” I said through fits of laughter.

“Did he REALLY just stick his arm out of the window at 185MPH?” someone asked from behind me.

“Yep, he did! As I said, that’s a classic move on his part!”

The race stayed green, with Ward Burton leading the most laps, until lap 157, when a caution came out for Joe Nemechek hitting the wall. After five laps under yellow, which allowed a full-round of pitstops, the race restarted with Michael Waltrip in the lead, and Steve Park surprisingly taking the lead the next lap. What NASCAR commentators had taken to calling ‘the Big One’ occurred on lap 173, when Robby Gordon bumped Ward Burton, causing Burton to turn into the outside lane where he hit Tony Stewart and caused a chain reaction accident that ended up taking out eighteen cars and causing NASCAR to display a red flag to clean up the mess.

Watching the replays, it was clear that Tony Stewart got the worst of it, having gone airborne over Robby Gordon, flipping twice, and landing on top of the car driven by Jason Leffler, before landing right-side-up and coming to a stop in the infield. Bobby Labonte’s hood was ripped off during the wreck, and his engine caught fire. In the end, the wreck eliminated any chances of winning for Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte, Andy Houston, Buckshot Jones, Dale Jarrett, Jeff Burton, Elliott Sadler, Kenny Wallace, John Andretti, and Jerry Nadeau. Some of them would be able to continue, but would be laps down and wouldn’t have the speed to run with the pack. Bill, along with the three DEI cars, and Sterling Marlin, were ahead of the wreck, and a few back-markers managed to come through the smoke and debris intact. They all parked in pit lane, behind the pace car, to wait for the track to be cleared.

“Fucking restrictor plates,” I growled. “They pretty much guarantee wrecks like this. The cars are TOO equal and don’t have enough horsepower.”

“Weren’t they bunched up from the previous caution?” Tom asked.

“Yes, but if they had full throttle, and they weren’t so identical, they’d space out more in five or six laps. NASCAR stupidly thinks this is better because it makes it LOOK like racing when it’s not. Nobody can pull away, nobody can step out of the draft unless he has a bunch of cars following him, and you get this kind of result at Daytona and Talladega with regularity.”

“Have you considered NASCAR wants crashes?” a woman behind me asked. “Like the NHL wants fights?”

I chuckled, “Yes, there are people who watch races for crashes and hockey games for fights, but the NHL doesn’t manufacture fights, and it doesn’t change the rules to cause them! What NASCAR is doing is the opposite of hockey. It would be like the NHL removing the divider between the penalty boxes and going back to a single, unified ‘sin bin’. Imagine what would happen!”

She laughed, “Chaos! Entertaining, but probably a REALLY bad idea. Is that how it was?”

“Originally, yes, but that was a long time ago. NASCAR, on the other hand, seems intent on making things worse, not better.”

“Who are you rooting for?” she asked.

“Elliott. But I’m also OK with any of the Hendrick cars winning because a very good friend of mine from Dawsonville works for Rick Hendrick building cars.”

“Dawsonville? Isn’t that where Elliott’s from?”

“Yes. I’ve met him. I even had dinner at his house.”

“Whoa! Through your friend?”

“Through the woman who became my friend’s wife, but who passed away a dozen years ago.”

“Accident?”

“Cancer.”

“Damn. That sucks. Have you met any other drivers?”

“Pretty much anyone who was racing from the mid-80s and early 90s,” I replied. “Including Dale Earnhardt. One of my kids is an Earnhardt fan and was tickled pink to get to meet him. He even got to sit in Ironhead’s car at Michigan.”

“So cool! Where are you from?”

“Chicago. Well, California, originally, then Ohio, but Chicago for the past twenty years. You?”

“New York City. We’ve come here around this time for the past five years. You?”

“We were the first guests after they opened. Katy is a friend of mine from college.”

The red flag was lifted, and replaced by a yellow, to get the cars back on the track. That meant the teams with damaged cars could work on them, and the other cars could pit for tires and fuel. After the pit stops, Dale Junior got out in front and led under caution, and for one lap under green before being passed by Sterling Marlin, who was in turn passed by Ironhead, who himself was passed by a car he owned driven by Michael Waltrip. The cars mostly stayed in line, with Bill hovering around eighth until there were two laps to go and serious jockeying began.

“Sterling beat the front end off of that ol’ Dodge just trying to get around Dale Earnhardt Senior.“ Darrell Waltrip said from the commentary box as Marlin bumped and nudged the black #3 several times on the penultimate lap. They kept at it into the final lap, when with Michael Waltrip leading and Dale Junior right behind him in second, Earnhardt did everything he could to keep his Goodwrench Chevy between Marlin and his team drivers, including his son, who were up front.

As they came into the fourth turn, heading for the checkered flag, the black #3 got loose, probably because the #2 Miller car driven by Rusty Wallace, which was behind him, took air off his spoiler, and then was tapped by Sterling Marlin in the silver Coors Light car, which turned the #3 up into the yellow M&M sponsored #36 driven by Ken Schrader. They hit the wall, and the race continued in front of them, and the rest of the field got by unscathed. Michael Waltrip took the checkered flag waved with the yellow caution flag, with Dale Junior finishing second, Rusty Wallace third, Ricky Rudd fourth, and Bill in a respectable fifth. Darrell Waltrip went absolutely nuts in the commentary booth as his younger brother had just won the Daytona 500.

A quick replay showed that my initial impression appeared to be correct. A pan to the infield showed that Schrader was out of his car and the rescue crew was working on getting Earnhardt out of his car.

“That didn’t look too bad,” Tom said.

“I agree,” I replied. “Hard, but mostly people walk away from those. If he’s still in the car, I’d guess he hurt his leg because he had the gas pedal mashed to the floor or his arms because he was trying to steer to avoid the wall.”

Fox continued with the usual post-race interviews, but mentioned that Earnhardt was going to be taken by ambulance directly to Halifax Medical Center, which was very close to that track. They showed the ambulance making its way, and the fact that they didn’t show the extraction on TV, nor any close shots of the car, made me fear the worst.

“That’s not good,” I said. “The rules are they go to the infield care center first, which is fully staffed with a trauma team. If they’re going straight to the hospital, it’s bad.”

“Bad?” the young woman behind me asked.

“Bad enough they want him in a real trauma center,” I replied.

“Who?” Jessica asked coming into the room.

“Earnhardt. He had a fairly typical wreck, but hit the wall hard. They’re taking him directly to the hospital.”

“How close is it?”

“Minutes, if even,” I replied.

And then, a brief interview with Ken Schrader told me everything I needed to know.

“I’d say he’s fatally injured if not dead,” I said, shaking my head, stunned, and feeling as if someone had just hit me with a front jump kick to the chest.

“Why?”

“Schrader is in shock,” I said. “And his comment about not being a doctor? He was the first one to Earnhardt’s car.”

“But the wreck wasn’t that bad!” the women behind me protested. “Stewart walked away after flipping a couple of times!”

They showed another replay of the crash and Jessica shook her head.

“Tiger, does he still drive with an open-face helmet?”

“Yes,” I replied.

She watched a second replay and shook her head again.

“Either blunt force trauma, or, more likely, basilar skull fracture.”

“Jorge,” I said softly.

“I’m sorry, Tiger, but I’d say you’re right.”

“How do you know?” the young woman asked.

“She’s an Attending Trauma Surgeon at University of Chicago hospital,” Kurt said.

Just as he said that, the broadcast team cut to Ken Squier, who confirmed what Jessica said, even if not directly. He gave a soliloquy about heroes, which made it very, very clear that they thought Earnhardt was dead, but weren’t going to say anything until it was confirmed.

“Fuck,” I said quietly.

“That made it kind of obvious, I think,” Tom said equally quietly. “I can’t imagine ending the broadcast that way under any other circumstance. That was a brief eulogy, if I ever heard one.”

“Jesus,” the young woman behind us breathed.

“If you’re in touch with Him,” I said, “He’s likely about the only one who can do something about the situation if my wife is right, and I’m pretty sure she is.”

Two minutes later my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw, to no surprise, saw Abbie’s name in the display.

“You watching?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I sighed.

“Jason is convinced Dale died in the wreck. He’s pretty broken up right now.”

“I think he’s right. I need to call Jennifer right now. We can talk later, OK?”

“I think I’ll call Matthew,” Abbie said.

“Good plan,” I replied. “You’re seeing him next weekend, right?”

“Yes.”

We said ‘goodbye’ and I hung up, then dialed Jennifer’s mobile number.

“Where’s our Little Duck?” I asked.

“In your house with his friends playing pool. Why?”

“We’re pretty sure Dale Earnhardt just died in a wreck at Daytona.”

“Holy shit!” Jennifer gasped. “What happened?”

“He hit the wall during the last lap. It looked like he got aero-loose, got tapped by Sterling Marlin, and went into the wall nearly head-on. Abbie called just a few seconds ago and Jason has the same opinion. Jess is speculating basilar skull fracture, like what killed Jorge.”

“Let me go find Jesse and tell him.”

“It’s not confirmed,” I replied. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense given everything they said and did on the broadcast.”

“Should I wait?”

“No. I’d tell him now that the accident happened and what we think is true. I’m sure we’ll know within an hour or so, if it even takes that long.”

“OK.”

We said ‘goodbye’ and I hung up.

[Chicago, Illinois] 🎤 Jesse

“Jesse?” Mom One called from the bottom of the basement stairs.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Can I talk to you for a minute? It’s kind of important.”

“Sure,” I replied, then turned to my friends, “I’ll be right back.”

I walked over to Mom One and we went upstairs to the ‘Indian’ room.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Your dad called. He was watching the Daytona 500 and there was a bad wreck. They think Dale Earnhardt died in the crash.”

“No!” I gasped. “No way!”

“They aren’t one hundred percent sure, but Dad said everything they said and did made it pretty clear.”

“Shit,” I sighed, feeling like I wanted to cry.

Mom held out her arms and I moved into them so she could hug me. I really didn’t know what to say or do, because I couldn’t believe it. She hugged me tightly for a minute, then loosened her arms.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

I shrugged, “Not much, I guess. I think I want to turn on the TV and see what they say.”

“OK. I’ll stay with you, if that’s OK.”

I nodded, “It is. Let me get my friends.”

I went downstairs and told them what had happened, and Libby, Kenny, Mia, Nicholas, Mickey, Nicole, and Blake all came upstairs with me. I put on Fox Sports, because I knew Fox had carried the race. Soon enough they showed a replay of the crash which didn’t look all that bad, but then they showed the ambulance and I was sure Dad was right.

[Montpelier, Vermont] 🎤 Steve

“You OK, Tiger?”

“Yes. No symptoms; I’m just completely stunned. Even after Davey and Alan, this is unbelievable. Maybe because both of them were flying incidents, not racing incidents, but Ironhead seemed, well from the moniker, indestructible.”

“Nobody is,” Tom said. “We firemen all think that and then something like what happened to Lane Nicholson happens, and we remember we aren’t.”