Sudden impact

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Has it been five years? It seems as if it's been longer. It feels as if it just happened yesterday.

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of Dale Earnhardt's death. The tragic event that unfolded on the last corner of the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 brought stock car racing to its knees, devastated the legion of fans loyal to the black No. 3 Goodwrench Chevrolet, and took from NASCAR its seven-time champion and undisputed icon.

''It, obviously, doesn't seem like five years," said Dale Earnhardt Jr., the late driver's son and heir apparent to Dale Earnhardt Inc., the powerful Mooresville, N.C.-based race team Earnhardt started with his widow, Teresa. ''You know, it's good that he's still on people's minds. People still miss him. I still like to see the [No.] 3 stickers in the back of everybody's pickup truck and stuff like that."

But, even in death, Dale Earnhardt proved to be larger than life.

Since losing the man whom Bill France Jr., then NASCAR's chairman and CEO, called ''our greatest driver," Earnhardt's greatest legacy, it seems, is the impact he had on the growth of a sport. At the time, NASCAR stood ready to skyrocket into the American mainstream with a lucrative new television deal with Fox Sports/FX and NBC Sports/TNT. But it was Earnhardt's death that put the sport on the front pages of newspapers across the country, at the top of all the network news shows, and brought the sport more recognition, it seemed, than Earnhardt ever did when he was alive.

''Only then did you really realize how big he was and the status of him," said NASCAR president Mike Helton, whose duty was to report the news of Earnhardt's death in a somber postrace press conference: ''After the accident in Turn 4 at the end of the Daytona 500, we have lost Dale Earnhardt."

Helton said he gained a sense of Earnhardt's global popularity when he accompanied the driver on a trip to Japan several years ago and was taken aback by the wild reaction of the Japanese motorsports fans when Earnhardt made an exhibition run at a track in Suzuka. It was, Helton recalled, like being with a rock star.

''To realize after we lost him, the impact it made all through the world, told you that he was bigger than what he thought it was -- and in some ways, even bigger," Helton said. ''Certainly, it was bittersweet because we were proud someone from your forum of motorsports transcended the sport and was at that level.

''The bitter part of that was it took [his death] for him to be recognized. It took that episode to cause that recognition."

While everyone from NASCAR's board of directors, to the Richard Childress Racing team Earnhardt left without a driver, to the fledgling DEI team Earnhardt left without a visionary leader, all wrestled with the same question -- ''How do we go on without Dale Earnhardt?" -- NASCAR, it seems, managed to find a way to survive the loss, if not thrive in Earnhardt's absence.

In the five years since his death, NASCAR has experienced an unprecedented growth spurt. After 33 years with R.J. Reynolds (maker of the Winston brand of cigarettes) as its title sponsor, NASCAR switched to a more market-friendly telecommunications sponsor (Nextel) that exposed the sport's premier series to a greater cross-section of consumers, with 13 million fans attending races in 12 states in 2005.

NASCAR this year hammered out a new TV deal, rumored to be worth $4.5 billion over eight years, that will broadcast the Nextel Cup series to 75 million fans over four networks: ABC, ESPN, Fox Sports, and FX.

NASCAR has a new generation of champions -- Jeff Gordon, 2001; Matt Kenseth, 2003; Kurt Busch, 2004; and Tony Stewart, 2002 and '05 -- and adopted a new format, the Chase for the Nextel Cup, a playoff among the top 10 drivers over the final 10 races of the season, to determine its last two champions.

More important, Earnhardt's death seemed to put a number of safety initiatives on the fast track, ranging from the mandatory implementation of head-and-neck support (HANS) devices, to the mandatory installation of SAFER (steel and foam energy reduction) barriers at every track, to development of the Car of Tomorrow, the latest initiative of NASCAR's Research and Development Center, a $10 million, 61,000-square-foot facility that opened in 2003 and signaled the sanctioning body's unprecedented level of commitment to the future and safety of its sport.

''Everybody believes that the day Dale got killed, NASCAR went, 'Oh my, we've got to get hold of this safety stuff. We've got to get ahead of this.' That is false. That is truly false,' " said driver Kyle Petty, whose 18-year-old son, Adam, was killed in May 2000 in a crash during practice for a Busch Series race at New Hampshire International Speedway.

''From the day Adam's accident happened, and I can speak on a personal level, there was not many days or weeks that went by that I didn't speak with Gary Nelson [NASCAR's vice president of research and development] or Mike Helton or somebody from NASCAR about things they had on the table, on the blackboard, that they were moving toward."

Petty said NASCAR began to gain momentum on safety initiatives when his son's fatality was followed by those of Winston Cup driver Kenny Irwin at NHIS in July 2000 and Craftsman Truck Series driver Tony Roper at Texas Motor Speedway in October 2000.

''When Dale's accident happened, it moved from being an internal force to an external force," Petty said. ''The guy that bought the ticket for the fourth row, the guy that bought the ticket for the 10th row, they began to voice their opinions.

''We all know that the way NASCAR reacts a lot of times is when the public says something, they react to it," Petty added. ''I have to be honest and say I think NASCAR was a lot more proactive in this situation than anybody is giving them credit for. I think [the media] and the general public believe them to be reactionary and they only reacted after Dale's accident. They were already proactive before that. They already had things in the pipeline.

''Now, did Dale's accident speed that up? Yes, it did."

But it also left the sport with a huge void. No longer, it seemed, did the drivers in the garage have someone with Earnhardt's heft or cult of personality to act as their advocate in the NASCAR hauler.

''There's no one in this sport right now, there's no driver in the sport that carries the size of stick that Dale Earnhardt carried," said driver Mark Martin. ''No, in my opinion, that is somewhat gone. Every sport, I think, needs their heroes and we have our heroes here in this sport, but there are heroes very much different than Dale Earnhardt.

''There just won't be another one," he added. ''I don't think there ever will be."

Then, realizing he seemed to slight Dale Earnhardt Jr. with that remark, Martin reversed himself. ''I shouldn't say that," he said. ''There might be. There may be, but I'm an old-timer and I just don't see that. He was a unique person and when he spoke, people listened."

Said Dale Jr., ''It was hard to be Dale Jr. when Dad was around. Still tough. But there were a lot of advantages. I had a lot of fun. Wouldn't trade it for anything. When he was around, man, you knew he was there."

Earnhardt Jr. broke into a chuckle, recalling how his father loved to surprise people by coming up from behind and putting a vise-like grip on their necks.

''You know, I miss him a lot," Dale Jr. said. ''Obviously, you know, he was . . . he could be a huge assist in a lot of things that happened to me, personally, over the last five years."

While there has been talk that the only one capable of getting behind the wheel of Richard Childress Racing's familiar No. 3 would be the 31-year-old Dale Jr., he knows he first must take care of business after failing miserably to qualify his No. 8 Budweiser car for last year's championship chase.

''I know I want to win a championship," Earnhardt Jr. said. ''I know I have sort of a vision of where I want to be at a certain age. But I don't look that far into the future and get specific. You know, I drive right off the hood. I look at where I'm at right now. I would love to drive the 3 on down the road, and Richard knows that.

''I hate him talking about it, because I don't want to put it off on him, put any pressure on him, or disrupt what he's trying to do with RCR to date."

Childress was left in a serious lurch when Earnhardt died. He not only lost a veteran driver and seven-time champion, but a close friend who shared his interest in the outdoors and hunting and fishing.

''When you lose a great driver and a great friend like that, it takes time," Childress said. ''We came back in 2002 and Kevin [Harvick] won Rookie of the Year and finished ninth in the points and won a couple of races. Our whole company went into shock and probably will always be. But it's guys like Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick that have made it a little easier.

''It's tough on all of us -- the loss that we all went through. Hopefully, he's up there looking down on us, proud of what the sport has done and where the sport has gone and the many things that have happened in the this sport.

''Five years later," said Childress, his voice trailing off. ''It sure doesn't seem like it."