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The Life of Reilly
The Power of 3
There he stood, tougher than a $2 steak, neck by Rawlings, a good 50 hard years
behind him, tears dripping off his beard.
J.W. Martin had driven eight hours for this -- the late Dale Earnhardt's 52nd
birthday, the one day of the year when worshipers of the NASCAR driver are
allowed to enter his 70,000-square-foot Garage Mahal in Mooresville, N.C. -- and
now it was just too damn much for him.
Martin was standing between a row of four cars that Earnhardt had used to wax
other drivers and the 1957 coral-pink street Chevy that Earnhardt had lovingly
waxed himself, and the ol' boy was suddenly butter.
"People just don't understand what he meant," said a sniffling Martin, who back
home in Lebanon, Tenn., has Earnhardt commemorative glasses and plates, blanket,
wall decor, wet bar, truck, car, boat and grandbaby's car seat. "Racin' just
ain't been the same without him."
On April 29 about 13,000 people like Martin made the pilgrimage to Dale
Earnhardt Inc. headquarters on Dale Earnhardt Highway 3 in the town known as
Dalesville to see some of the pistons the great man pumped, some of the hats he
wore and some of the trophies he held over those hats.
There were men with Dale Sr.'s face tattooed on their right forearms and Dale Jr.'s
on their left. There were women driving $31,000 Dale Earnhardt signature Monte
Carlos, one with the plate dalesgr8. "See this pitcher?" said Elwood Jones of
Rocky Mount, Va., showing an 11-by-14 photograph from the 2001 Daytona 500.
"This was taken 20 minutes before Dale died. It's for sale, but I ain't sellin'
to nobody but a true Dale fan. And I can tell."
Like Elvis's, Earnhardt's legend has only grown in death. It's been more than
two years since he died in "the perfect crash," as it's called, the grisly
combination of speed and angle of impact that killed him. "How long did I cry?"
asked Jones. "Buddy, I ain't stopped."
This was the second birthday open garage, and fans slept outside the night
before to be among the first in line. For what? For the gift shop, of course, a
place they can get into most every other day of the year.
"Looks like you bought something," I said to Julie Weist, who drove 1,100 miles,
from Dows, Iowa, with her husband, Mark.
"Yep," she said, wiping away tears. "I'm gonna frame it."
"You're going to frame a T-shirt?"
"Not the shirt!" she corrected. "The bag!"
A man got on his back and scooted under the 1994 Lumina that Earnhardt drove to
clinch his seventh Winston Cup championship. He wanted to take a few snaps. Hey,
if a close-up of Dale's drivetrain doesn't give you chill bumps, then you must
not be from one of the five states -- Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina,
Texas and Virginia -- that this year declared April 29 as Dale Earnhardt Day.
You wouldn't understand why three Mooresville-area hotels offered discount rates
and shuttle-bus service to Earnhardt's muffler mecca. Or why the crowd there got
eerily quiet when The Dance, by Garth Brooks, was played over the sound system.
You probably wouldn't drive 13 hours just to stand on the street where Dale grew
up -- yeah, Sedan Street -- the same place where his daddy died of a heart
attack while fixing a carburetor. (Hell, you probably wouldn't fix your own
carburetor, either.)
You wouldn't get why the minor league baseball team in Dale's hometown of
Kannapolis, N.C., is called the Intimidators. Nor why people nearly cause
traffic accidents pulling over to take pictures of themselves in front of dale
earnhardt blvd signs.
Three Nation still grieves. It holds three fingers to the sky at the start of
every NASCAR race. It goes silent in the third lap of every race. It wears
Earnhardt's trademark black jeans, black T-shirt and black hat whether it's 103¡
or 3¡. Forty percent of NASCAR's souvenir sales are Earnhardt-related. A Navy
sailor, Robert Butcher, begged for and received permission to take his
reenlistment oath at the Earnhardt garage on this most holy day.
This obsession still amazes Dale Earnhardt Inc.'s 250 employees. Still amazes
the family too. "What's funny is that Dale [never really wanted] us doing much
for his birthday," says Dale's 50-year-old brother, Randy. The Intimidator was
famous for skipping birthdays altogether -- his age was something of a mystery.
"All I know is, I started out younger than him," Randy says, "and ended up
passing him somewhere along the line."
If that's true, his adoring fans want you to know something: It's the only damn
time Dale Earnhardt liked gettin' passed.
If there was one moment that summed up the day, it was this: At about noon there
was a sudden hush in the garage showroom, and a crowd gathered respectfully to
peer down a hall, cameras to their eyes. "What's going on?" I inquired.
A woman holding a video camera whispered emotionally, "They're unloading some of
Dale Jr.'s tools!"
The king is dead. Long live the king.
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Rick Reilly, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, has been voted national
sports writer of the year seven times. His latest book, The Life of Reilly, a
best-of compilation of his SI columns and features, hit bookstores in November
2000. He has also written books with Wayne Gretzky, Charles Barkley and Brian
Bosworth, and has published two novels, Missing Links and Slo-Mo: My Untrue
Story.
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