Nascar

04.08.02
Day 2
Black Sunday

On the morning of the biggest day of his young life, Winston Cup rookie Kurt Busch awoke at a reasonable hour, about eight o'clock. Outside his motor coach, Daytona International Speedway was coming alive.

Spectators streamed toward the luxury boxes and the grandstands, and in the infield, a massive space that contained a lake and numerous campsites, thousands of fans were stirring after a long night of debauchery. Bacon and sausages sizzled on barbecue pits, and many campers, including a pot-bellied man who wore a plastic penis on his nose, had already moved past their first beers of the day. Seventies rock music blared from stereos, and a plane overhead pulled a banner advertising a strip joint on Daytona Beach.

It was a wonder Busch wasn't consumed with worry on that Sunday, Feb. 18, 2001. He had never driven in the Daytona 500, the opening race of the Winston Cup season. Indeed, he barely had any experience in a Cup car, the fastest of all stock cars. But speed alone wasn't what might have unnerved Busch, it was also the manner in which cars circle Daytona International Speedway, a steeply banked track 21/2 miles long. Separated by inches, the cars travel in packs 3 wide and 10 or more deep -- a parking lot at nearly 200 miles an hour. Daytona punishes mistakes cruelly. Since its opening in 1959, more than two dozen racers have died there, and scores have been injured.

Rookie drivers rarely find friends among the veterans at Daytona -- but Busch would find at least one sworn enemy.

Last fall, driving in one of his first seven Cup races, Busch accidentally bumped Dale Earnhardt's son Dale Jr. Junior, a soft-spoken young man, forgave. His father did not. Word was that Earnhardt, nicknamed "The Intimidator" for his uniquely ruthless style of racing, intended to teach Busch a lesson -- perhaps as soon as today.

DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY welcomed the first Daytona 500 in 1959 when 59 cars competed for a purse of $67,760 in front of 41,000 fans. View today's slideshow View today's gallery: Drivers Who are the drivers?

Whatever happened today, Busch knew, a nation would be watching.

NASCAR had just signed an unprecedented $2.8-billion television deal with Fox, NBC, and Turner Broadcasting to bring Winston Cup races into America's living rooms. Television executives had heavily promoted the Daytona 500, one of the world's greatest races, and they anticipated a record audience.

Busch walked from his motor coach to the garage area, where racecars are serviced and tuned. He conferred with the crew of his No. 97 car, whose rear bumper carried a NASCAR-mandated strip of yellow tape that alerted competitors to a driver's rookie status. Then he strolled out onto pit road.

Busch confided that he was anxious, but not paralyzingly so.

"This is something that we've built toward over the whole winter," he said. "I'm ready to go. It's time to start racing."

Busch's parents, Tom and Gaye, were worrying about him when he arrived at his hauler, an 18-wheel trailer that transports racecars, equipment, and supplies, and which features a small kitchen and a driver's lounge with a TV and computer. Drivers spend much of their free time at the track behind the smoke-glass doors of their haulers, one of the rare places they can find privacy.

"I'm ready to start my crying thing," Gaye said. "I hate this race. I don't care where he finishes, just bring him home."

Busch hugged his father, and then hugged and kissed his mother, who by now was in tears. In a moment, the older Busches would leave to join the 200,000 or so others at Daytona International Speedway, a crowd almost double that for any Super Bowl. They would watch from the stands.

"I love you, Mom," the rookie said. "Hang in there."

JACK ROUSH had arrived at the garage shortly after the gates opened at 6 a.m. on that Sunday. Dawn had yet to break.

Roush had felt anxious when he awoke. The Daytona 500 was by its nature an unpredictable race, one where even a great driver could finish last through no fault of his own. But fans expected wins and top-five finishes from Roush drivers. Roush fielded Ford cars and the manufacturer also had high expectations. So did Roush's sponsors, for whom a win would bring the kind of advertising no money could buy.

"It's an inconvenient and inappropriate time from the teams' point of view to have the biggest race of the year," Roush said. The Daytona 500 is the first points race of the season, and NASCAR every year ordinarily revises the rules governing the shape of the cars.

"We go into the first race of the year with the unknowns of the technical balance of the cars from a rules point of view, and then try to deliver back to our sponsors and to our manufacturer and to our fans a performance that is credible, something that would justify their investment and their support."

Roush this year also had another pressing concern. During the off-season, he had not attracted a sponsor for Kurt Busch's No. 97 car, which subsequently was painted white, not with some corporation's decals and colors. A potential sponsor with deep pockets had traveled to Daytona to hear Roush and his people pitch the kid, and a good showing today would help in reaching a deal. A bad run might send this prospect to another owner. Fortune 500 companies never lacked choices in NASCAR racing.

But Roush had not flourished by surrendering to anxieties, and by the time he entered the garage area, he'd pushed financial concerns aside. He strode to Mark Martin's hauler, which he used as his trackside headquarters. It featured a small machine shop, in which a row of carburetors awaited him this morning.

Roush had built his empire on a genius for designing and building internal-combustion engines with unsurpassed power, fuel economy, and durability. Many of his innovations had made their way into production automobiles, but Roush was best known for his race engines. And every race morning, he personally fine-tuned each of his carburetors. Roush had built and now ran a $250-million company, but he remained a gearhead at heart.

One by one, Roush went to work: first Mark Martin's carburetor, then Jeff Burton's, then Matt Kenseth's. Squinting through a magnifying glass, he examined the eight spark plugs from each carburetor's engine, looking for the subtle differences in color and condition that provided insight into performance during the engine's previous run. He consulted a mechanic's log, blew dust away, hammered this throttle plate and tightened that screw, changed the carburetor jets, cleaned and lubricated using two types of oil, held the carburetor to the light, re-examined each spark plug with his magnifying glass, and tinkered some more.

Looking at his face, which showed engrossment and a glimmer of joy, you could almost see the 10-year-old from small-town Ohio, enchanted by an old lawn-mower engine he hoped would power his go-cart faster than any bicycle could.

"And then there was one," said Roush, moving to Busch's carburetor.

When he was done, Roush decided to return it to the No. 97 car himself. He had found dirt on a part of the carburetor where no dirt should have been, and having concluded that the air-cleaner cover had been improperly attached, he wanted to ensure that it was positioned correctly for the race.

"Is that a big thing?" Roush said. "No. But this is a game of inches."

The sun was up now, and the garage area was becoming crowded. Roush left Martin's hauler and started toward the bay that held Busch's car. He hadn't gotten far when a middle-aged man asked him to autograph his program. Roush signed it. A few steps later, a woman asked if her companion could take a picture of her with Roush. Roush posed. A rookie like Kurt Busch could still move largely unnoticed through a race throng, but not the boss.

"Good luck, Jack," another fan said.

Roush thanked him, then hurried on to the No. 97 car. Roush possessed a wicked humor and when the mood fit, he told entertaining stories, but he was all business today. He hoped this would be the year one of his drivers finally captured the Winston Cup.

IT WAS APPROACHING 9 a.m. when Jeff Burton stepped out of his motor coach, which was parked in an area of the infield protected by chainlink fence and uniformed guards. Inside the coach, Kim, Burton's wife of nine years, tended to their 5-year-old daughter and their baby son.

Burton boarded a golf cart, which left the infield, crossed the asphalt, and departed the speedway for the hospitality tent city outside. Fans seeking autographs mobbed Burton at every turn, but eventually the cart made it to a big top decorated with red, white, and blue balloons. Cans of motor oil festooned with tinsel were the centerpieces at the tables inside. Sitting at them, the hundreds of employees and friends of CITGO Petroleum Corp., Burton's primary sponsor, could behold one of Burton's red, white, and blue No. 99 racecars parked in front.

As Burton waited in the wings, the emcee listed highlights of his record: 15 Cup races won (38th on the all-time list), and a third-place finish in the overall standings last season (a mere 29 points behind second-place Dale Earnhardt and 294 points behind the champion, Bobby Labonte). The emcee did not mention that Burton had finished the last four seasons in the elite top 10 in points -- and that in his Cup career, he had won almost $19 million.

Nor did the emcee need to point out to this crowd, most of whom wore No. 99 caps and T-shirts, that motorsports journalists and even Las Vegas oddsmakers had picked Burton to win this year's Winston Cup.

JEFF BURTON, waving, lines up for driver introductions before the start of the International Race of Champions at Daytona in February 2001. View today's slideshow View today's gallery: Drivers Who are the drivers?

Racetracks come in different lengths, shapes, and surfaces, and Burton knew precisely which cars from Roush's extensive inventory drove best on each; indeed, he'd helped design the cars. He knew, after driving just a few laps on any track, what subtle changes in suspension or tire pressure that his car of the day needed to deliver that extra tenth or two of a mile an hour it took to prevail in this game of inches. In the prime of his career, Burton had mastered existence at the edge.

Rousing music burst from a loudspeaker as Burton appeared on stage, and he was animated when he took the microphone. "It's gonna be a great race," he said, in the silky tones of Virginia, his native state. "It's gonna be really exciting to watch."

Burton outlined his admittedly simple strategy for the race -- essentially, positioning himself to prevail in the usual mad dash at the end -- and he professed satisfaction with the way his car had handled during the previous week's practices. In the question-and-answer session that followed, a fan asked Burton if he wanted to be leading the Daytona 500 halfway through. "I want to be leading at the end!" he replied, to great laughter.

Another fan asked Burton how many spotters he used.

"We only have one spotter," Burton said.

"With really good eyesight," the fan said.

"Well, we hope he has really good eyesight!" Burton said. "We haven't determined that yet!"

Burton worked a crowd masterfully, blending down-home humor with wit and insight. These talents would serve him well if someday he sought to achieve his grand ambition. Few people knew, but Burton wanted to be a United States senator after his racing career ended. He was not your everyday NASCAR driver.

"We're ready to kick off the 2001 season," Burton said. "We'll do our best to make you proud."

Leaving the CITGO breakfast, Burton traveled to a tent to address employees of Coca-Cola, an associate sponsor of his car. Returning on his golf cart to the speedway, where pre-race ceremonies would soon begin, Burton talked about safety, which was often on his mind. The way racecars tended to bunch up at Daytona spooked him.

"I'm sure there will be a big wreck today," Burton said. "I just hope we're not in it."

KURT BUSCH CHANGED changed into his race shoes and firesuit, which was white, like his car. Jack Roush had given Busch proprietorship of almost 20 of his hand-built vehicles for this season -- more than his other drivers would use on the many speedways they all visited on the tour. It was assumed that an aggressive young man required a surplus as he ascended the steep side of the learning curve. With the cars came a crew of mechanics -- some seasoned in Cup racing, others new to the series, including crew chief Matt Chambers.

It was noon, an hour before the Daytona 500 was to begin.

Chambers had assembled the crew for a final pre-race meeting, and the No. 97 hauler was jammed. The meeting had just started when Jack Roush stepped inside. Roush stood listening, at first.

Chambers was advising a team member on filling a radiator when Roush interrupted with a discourse on water pressure, water temperature, and the necessity of keeping a clean grille, through which cooling air reaches the engine. Cooling weighed on Roush's mind. One of his cars had overheated during the final race of the 2000 season, so infuriating him that he had vaulted the pit wall to personally refill the radiator -- an unusual, perhaps unprecedented, move for a millionaire car owner.

After telling the crew that he would monitor their radio transmissions during the race and would be available immediately should they need him, Roush addressed the relative importance of the Daytona 500 for Busch and his crew.

With the addition in 2001 of two races (one near Chicago, and one in Kansas City, Kansas), the Winston Cup season now consisted of 36 races that extended, with only three weekends off, from mid-February until the Sunday before Thanksgiving -- the longest season of any major American sport. Under a system that awarded a driver a maximum of 185 points for a single race, the eventual champion would amass something on the order of 5,000 points. But he would probably win only four or five races, because the competition was intense at this level. A rookie would be lucky to win a single race, and it was unlikely to be the biggest one of all, the Daytona 500.

"If we get out of here in the top 20," Roush said, "we're good. If we get out of here in the top 10, we just won the World Series. This is the first race of a really long season. Don't go out there and do yourself in on this one. Don't wreck yourself out. Don't get yourself nervous. Do what you can do and you'll be fine. Have a good day."

A FEW HUNDRED yards away in the infield, Dale Earnhardt was sitting in the shade alongside his motor coach, which was parked near Jeff Burton's.

A high school dropout from the old mill town of Kannapolis, N.C., Earnhardt, 49, had parlayed rare driving skill into one of the most successful businesses in all of sports. With his winnings and income from endorsements, licenses, and the three Cup teams that he owned (though he drove for another owner, longtime friend Richard Childress), Earnhardt had amassed a fortune. Privately held Dale Earnhardt Inc. had annual revenues approaching $100 million, according to estimates. More than any other driver, Earnhardt had been chairman Bill France Jr.'s partner in the explosive growth of NASCAR in the 1980s and 1990s.

Feet up, an ultimately cool pose, Earnhardt was wearing his signature wraparound sunglasses and his customary smirk when a TV camera moved in. A Fox broadcaster asked him about the upcoming race.

"I think it's going to be some exciting racing," Earnhardt said. "Gonna see something you probably haven't never seen on Fox."

The TV interview over, Earnhardt departed his motor coach for pit road, where 43 shiny new racecars awaited their drivers. Earnhardt walked holding the hand of his third wife and business partner, Teresa. Their only child together, 12-year-old Taylor Nicole, walked on his other side, smiling.

Earnhardt passed Kurt Busch, who was waiting with his girlfriend, Melissa Schaper, at the back of the stage where the drivers were about to be introduced. When he was 4 or 5 and just starting to discover racing, Busch had rooted for Earnhardt. He'd hung posters of Earnhardt on his bedroom wall and fantasized about doing what Earnhardt did when he grew up.

"Good luck, Mr. Earnhardt," Busch said.

The Intimidator brushed past him without a word.

With other drivers, though, Earnhardt was more sociable. He embraced his son, Dale Jr., 26, who was beginning his sophomore Cup season and running in only his second Daytona 500. He talked to Kyle Petty, son of Richard Petty, the most successful stock-car driver ever. Kyle had lost his 19-year-old son, Adam, the previous May when the teenager was practicing for a race at New Hampshire International Speedway. Unable to find the words that might console Kyle, Earnhardt had avoided him in the months following Adam's death, but today he comforted the grieving father with a hug.

An official introduced each of the 43 drivers, the maximum allowed in any Cup race, and they walked to their vehicles. Earnhardt was starting next to Jeff Burton, and in the moments before they climbed into their cars, the two men and their wives chatted. For some time now, Burton had hungered to buy a yacht, on which he hoped periodically to escape the crush of racing stardom. On the brief vacations his schedule allowed, Burton had leased boats, but Kim, who managed the family finances, had resisted buying one. A boat owner himself, Earnhardt liked to tease her.

"Hey, when you gonna buy that boat?" Earnhardt said.

"Well, we don't make the kind of money you make, you know?" Kim joked.

Cordial though they were, Earnhardt and Burton had their professional differences. Nothing was more menacing, the saying went, than seeing Earnhardt's black No. 3 car in your rearview mirror in the closing laps of a race, for Earnhardt would do anything to win, including wreck an opponent. Burton, on the other hand, always drove clean. "I really don't want to spin somebody else out on the last lap to win a race," he said. "We didn't win the race if we did that. We knocked the guy out of the way. Anybody can knock somebody out of the way."

Burton and Earnhardt had raced together nearly 250 times, but except for once during Burton's rookie year, the two had never tangled on the track. Earnhardt respected Burton, who with his four consecutive top-10 finishes in points lacked only a championship to ensure an honored place in racing history. But off the track, the two men disagreed on safety, which had become a volatile issue following Adam Petty's death and the death two months later of Kenny Irwin Jr. Earnhardt believed that NASCAR had done about all it should to protect drivers' lives. Burton, who counted a broken back among his racing injuries, believed that NASCAR and track owners could accomplish more. In the weeks following the deaths of Petty and Irwin, he had emerged as the most outspoken of all Cup drivers on the issue of safety. Unlike drivers who toed the NASCAR line, Burton never held his tongue.

Neither did Earnhardt. He let it be known that he was irked by Burton's insistence that NASCAR slow its cars before the Cup tour returned to New Hampshire for the September race that followed the July 2000 death of Irwin. "I've heard some drivers saying, `We're going too fast at Charlotte, we're going too fast here,' " Earnhardt told a reporter. "Get the hell home -- if you're not a racecar driver and not a racer, stay home. Don't come here and grumble about going too fast. Get out of the racecar if you've got feathers on your legs or butt. Put a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up there and eat your candy ass."

THE MADE-FOR-TV BAND O-Town sang the national anthem; four Air Force fighter jets buzzed the crowd; and wives and girlfriends kissed drivers as they fidgeted in their cars. A minister recited the invocation and then the grand marshal spoke the words everyone had been waiting for: "Gentlemen, start your engines!"

"Let's kick ass for this championship," Earnhardt told his crew over his radio. "It's a new year and we know we can do it." Earnhardt was seeking his record eighth title.

It was 1:17 p.m.

The pace car led the field through the warm-up laps and then the flagman waved the green flag. The cars powered up. Bunched together, they circled the speedway, a tidal wave of sound, motion, and gut-rattling vibration that thrilled the senses.

Busch had started 26th, in the middle of the field, but he moved methodically to 18th by lap 26. Jeff Burton was 10th, and Roush's other Cup drivers, Mark Martin and Matt Kenseth, were also running in the top 20. Earnhardt had advanced to first. The laps unfolded. One-fifth of the way to the finish line, a car driven by a 41-year-old who'd never succeeded in Winston Cup racing hit the wall, alone. The yellow caution flag flew, slowing the race while a speedway crew cleared the debris from the pavement.

The race resumed and Ward Burton, Jeff Burton's older brother, took the lead. But Earnhardt never fell far back, and Busch continued to advance.

"You know who I got in front of me?" he radioed to his spotter, Bruce Hayes, on lap 62, shortly after drivers had made their first pit stops of the day.

It was Earnhardt.

"He's the heat, man," Hayes radioed back. "Stay with him. Nice and smooth. Use your head. Hang with him."

Hayes wanted Busch to take advantage of an aerodynamic phenomenon known as drafting, in which one car following another at high speed is essentially sucked along by the one in front. He wanted Busch on Earnhardt's bumper, for he believed it was only a matter of time before Earnhardt regained the lead. "If he goes off the track for a hot dog," Hayes radioed, "you go get that hot dog with him."

Busch clung to Earnhardt's bumper. They were inches apart, with cars to either side -- and more cars to the front and rear of those cars -- all moving at close to 200 mph.

Once again, the field shuffled. Martin found the lead, and Jeff Burton, who'd been running second, fell back to seventh. Busch was fourth. Two laps later, he was second.

"Hang on, just be patient," Hayes radioed. "There you go, nice and smooth. Just take your time."

Over the next 80 or so laps, as the field continued to shuffle, Busch was rarely lower than 10th. Earnhardt had fallen back a bit when, two-thirds of the way through the race, Busch looked over and saw him -- close enough to touch, hard on the rookie's left. The Intimidator had snuck up on the rookie, and now he wanted to deliver a message.

With a nudge of his steering wheel, Earnhardt banged Busch, metal-to-metal, door-to-door. Busch didn't spin out, but in case the rookie had missed the message, Earnhardt extended his middle finger.

TURN FOUR of the Daytona International Speedway is not for the faint-hearted. It is sharp and steeply banked, and drivers negotiating it are focused on steering hard left while preparing to accelerate into the straighter stretch just ahead. With less than a quarter of the race to go, Busch was coming off Turn Four when he decided to go high -- go to the right of another car. Spotter Hayes had cleared him, but Busch did not see the nose of Joe Nemechek's car tickling his rear bumper. The cars kissed, but at extreme speed, a kiss invites trouble. Busch spun sideways across the infield grass. Miraculously, he kept from overturning and he was unhurt, but the accident broke a part of the undercarriage of his car.

Busch coasted back to pit road, but his car was unraceable. He sat silently in his cockpit as his crew pushed him back to the garage, where they frantically began repairs.

Minus the white car with the yellow bumper, the Daytona 500 resumed. Fewer than 30 laps remained now.

After nearly three hours of concentration so horrific that three-time champion Jeff Gordon later said his eyeballs hurt, the drivers were wearying. And yet, the race was entering its most crucial phase. The winner of the first Daytona 500, in 1959, had won $19,050, but the winner of the 2001 race would receive $1.3 million from a purse of more than $11 million, one of the richest in all of auto racing. From Florida, he would embark on a national media tour that would delight sponsors and please Bill France Jr., who cherished such grand promotional opportunities for the sport that had made him one of the 400 wealthiest people in America. For one week, at least, the winner of the Daytona 500 would hold first place in the Winston Cup standings.

And for a short while, he would experience the sensation of winning at speed -- a sensation, found nowhere else, that was so pleasurable that Mark Martin declared he would walk 100 miles barefoot through snow to achieve. "It feels like the best drug ever been made," Martin said. "Incredible. No words to describe it."

For anyone desiring all that, it was now or never.

The pack roared through the backstretch, a 3,000-foot straightaway on which drivers reached maximum speed.

Then it happened, the big wreck Jeff Burton had predicted. Robby Gordon, who'd finished the 2000 season in 43rd place, hit the car driven by Jeff's brother Ward. It was as if a bomb had been detonated. Cars spun, smashed, and smoked in a blur of sponsors' colors. They spewed metal, oil, boiling water, and super-heated grease. Tony Stewart's car launched into the air, barrel-rolling and bouncing off the tops of two other cars before gravity pulled its mangled carcass back to earth. Nineteen cars wrecked, including both of the Burtons', Mark Martin's, Jeff Gordon's, Dale Jarrett's, and Bobby Labonte's. Incredibly, only Stewart required an ambulance.

"I know it was exciting to watch," Jeff Burton said later, "but exciting and dangerous are two different things."

The red flag flew and the race stopped for 16 minutes while speedway workers carted off the rubble. The most damaged cars did not return when the race resumed. Others came back minus body panels, bumpers, and hoods; under NASCAR's points system, even a hobbled lap could be worth something. His car crippled, Jeff Burton made it back, but not Mark Martin, who was done for the day. Matt Kenseth now was the only Roush driver who had not been involved in an accident, but he'd lost precious laps to a broken shock absorber.

Busch's team, meanwhile, managed to repair his car, and with 15 laps left, Busch rejoined the field, now thinned by about a third.

At the front, an emotional finish was developing as the last lap neared. Dale Earnhardt was running third -- behind Michael Waltrip and Dale Junior. Earnhardt owned his son's car and also Waltrip's. As the pack thundered down the backstretch for the last time, several drivers maneuvered to get by Earnhardt, but he blocked all of them. Ordinarily, this was the point in a race when The Intimidator would do anything to win, but for the first time anyone could remember, he was letting others -- his son and Waltrip -- stay ahead.

The pack was rounding Turn Four in the final seconds of the race when Sterling Marlin nipped Earnhardt. Earnhardt's black car spun, and Ken Schrader unavoidably hit it. Earnhardt crashed into the wall, then bounced back to the bottom of the bank, where it finally stopped.

Meanwhile, Waltrip had crossed the finish line, a whisker ahead of Junior, who placed second. Delirious with excitement, Waltrip headed to Victory Lane.

What a storybook ending! In more than 460 Winston Cup races over 16 years, Michael Waltrip had never finished first. He had craved but never tasted the sensation that Mark Martin likened to a narcotic. For an entire career, he had lived in the shadow of his brother Darrell, a three-time champion who had retired after the 2000 season and who was one of the broadcasters working the race for Fox TV. Overcome with emotion, Darrell had called the final laps of his brother's victory.

For the moment, Earnhardt was all but forgotten. Everyone assumed that, at worst, he had been knocked unconscious in the crash. Certainly, he'd be OK; like virtually every veteran Cup driver, Earnhardt had wrecked bad before and lived to race another day.

NIELSEN RATINGS would show that the record audience that television executives had banked on for the race had materialized, with more than 30 million viewers in the United States alone. Hundreds of journalists from around the world converged on Victory Lane, and then went to the media center to begin their stories.

A rookie who finished 41st of 43 attracted scant media attention, however, and Kurt Busch returned to his hauler accompanied only by his girlfriend. He acted subdued, but not distraught.

"Good job, honey," Melissa said. "You proved yourself today."

"I just came up short," Busch said.

Busch had changed out of his firesuit when Jack Roush walked in. All around, this was far from the opening day he had desired. His best driver in the race, Burton, had finished 19th, followed by Kenseth at 21st, and Martin at 33rd. Roush was disappointed, but not angry or defeated; four decades of racing had taught him many lessons, first among them racing's unending capacity for breaking hearts. And the year was still new.

"You could have won that race today," Roush said.

"Yes, I could have," Busch said.

"I want you to dwell on that."

Busch, who dreamed of being named Rookie of the Year, would.

Meanwhile, the grandstands began to empty and the reporters in the media center continued with their stories. Half an hour passed, without word of Earnhardt's condition. All anyone seemed to know was that the driver had been taken by ambulance to nearby Halifax Medical Center.

It was 5:45 p.m., more than an hour after the race had ended.

Reporters who had been in New Hampshire when Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin died began to get the same eerie feeling. And some remembered the scene at Daytona during the 500 race week back in 1994, when drivers Rodney Orr, a rookie, and Neil Bonnett, a future member of the Motorsports Hall of Fame, died during qualifying and practice runs. Bonnett, Earnhardt's best friend, was attempting a comeback after a wreck three years earlier that had injured his brain, rendering him temporarily unable to remember the names of his children and his hometown.

"Earnhardt's dead," some reporters began to whisper when more than an hour passed without word.

Eager for news, journalists found that NASCAR officials had closed the garage to outsiders early. But officials could do nothing about the fence. Peering through, reporters saw Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew clustering silently. A woman emerged from a NASCAR hauler in tears.

Back inside the media center, a public-relations specialist announced that Stewart, who'd taken the worst beating in the 19-car wreck, had sustained only minor injuries. He'd be ready to race again the following weekend.

Someone asked again about Earnhardt.

The specialist said she had no information.

At about 6:30 p.m., nearly two hours after Earnhardt crashed, the USA Today Web site reported that he was dead.

Only then did NASCAR president Mike Helton walk into the media center with emergency physician Steve Bohannon. The two men took the podium.

"We've lost Dale Earnhardt," said Helton, his voice choking.