My Ongoing Tribute to the Greatest NASCAR Driver Ever

Dale Earnhardt

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DEI wins second consecutive race

By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com
February 26, 2001
6:29 PM EST (2329 GMT)

Finally, perhaps, we can say that NASCAR’s long national nightmare is at an end.

No, eight days does not a Watergate make, but there’s no arguing that the preceding week of despair has felt like years, what with innumerable questions, limitless reflection and endless soul-searching. Then, as fate would have it, there was Sunday’s stoppage, which only served to prolong the affair.

Now, however, NASCAR can turn a page.

Under beautiful blue skies and in front of sparsely peopled grandstands, Steve Park won the rain-delayed Dura Lube 400 in a thrilling final-laps duel with a hard-charging Bobby Labonte, who made up almost 1.5 seconds on the leader in the final 10 laps.

While it was something of an anti-climax to an obviously eventful week, it was precisely what the shell-shocked and exhausted field needed -- and what the Earnhardt organization deserved.

“With about 10 [laps] to go, I knew we were light on fuel, I knew we were out of tires, but I knew a lot of people were in the same situation,” Park said after his emotional win.

“At that point, I started thinking about winning the race and forgot about driving, but then I got a kick in the back of the head that reminded me that I needed to stand up on that seat and spin that steering wheel the way Dale has always told me to do."

It was the race NASCAR wanted to run Sunday, as heavy with symbolism and good karma as any race could be. If Earnhardt Jr., who went out on the first lap Sunday, or The Intimidator’s good friend Michael Waltrip, who struggled for much of the day and finished 19th, couldn’t come home a winner, then why not Park, who is in his fourth year driving the No.1 car for Dale Earnhardt Incorporated? And, as the heartfelt response of the crowd made clear, it was obvious that most people felt the right man had won.

“It’s unfortunate we didn’t have the opportunity to celebrate with Dale [on Monday], but he was there,” Park said. “He was there. We all just couldn’t see him. He couldn’t put a stranglehold around me and give me a sore neck for two days, but he was there."

What a difference a day makes -- Sunday’s herky-jerk spectacle saw only 16 green flag-laps (of the 55 run), but Monday opened with an unbroken run of almost 200 trouble-free laps (minus a few innocuous wall slaps). As it was, Monday’s only caution came out for just nine laps after Mike Skinner took an uneventful spin on lap 245 and Stacy Compton blew his engine on lap 300.

After Sunday's red flag was replaced by Monday's green, Jeff Gordon jumped inside leader Stacy Compton in turn 1 and inaugurated what was, essentially, a three-man show for virtually the whole day.

Between them, Gordon and Steve Park, who qualified second to Gordon’s pole, led 120 of the first 125 laps. And once defending Winston Cup champion Bobby Labonte began to show himself near the halfway point, those three made a show of the rest of the race.

Between lap 56 and the end of the race, one of those three led all but six laps. What precious little change did occur at the front of the pack -- there were 20 lead changes among 10 drivers in the race -- was largely a byproduct of green-flag pit stops. With the exception of the sun, it was the most obvious change between the first 55 laps and the final 338.

Though the ruling triumvirate withstood minor challenges from Johnny Benson and Tony Stewart, they totally ruled the day. When Park blew by Gordon on lap 340, he led the trio away from the field.

But what had seemed like it might ultimately become a triumphal march was made endlessly fascinating by Labonte’s fierce final charge. In fact, in his effort to stymie the No. 18, Park was forced to race very wide -- so much so that the two came together with one to go.

“When Bobby caught me on that last lap,” Park said, “I was just so focused. I had to throw a block on him to try to keep him behind me. I wasn’t going to give it to him, I was going to make him work for it. We touched and come together … and we just made one whale of a race of it at the end there.”

Labonte was gracious about the minor tap that might well have cost him the win. “It was a deal where we didn’t really get together,” Labonte said. “We just got sideways, the both of us. I didn’t really lose much momentum, because I was back on the outside of him going into [turn] 1 and then dove back underneath him off [turn] 2, so I really didn’t lose momentum.”

The final momentum was all Park’s and not long after he drove across the line, he pulled a black cap with a large No. 3 on it and waved it to the crowd as he took a reverse victory lap. “Doing a reverse lap, being able to signify that the race was in his honor by waving his hat is something that was just beyond words,” Park said. “I almost ran into Michael Waltrip there 'cause I couldn’t see -- I had so many tears in my eyes.”

If Steve Park wasn’t the happiest man in Rockingham on Monday, quite possibly NASCAR President Mike Helton was. “With all the elements we had, it certainly couldn’t have been a much better day than [Monday] was,” Helton said.

“[A] Dale Earnhardt car wins, after everything he’d gone through this week. ... I was a bit emotional there for a moment, realizing there was two weekends where Dale would’ve been very proud of the guys that work for him. And they should be very proud of themselves as well.”

Finally, and quite possibly most important, the successful and uneventful completion of the Dura Lube 400 puts a period on the story of NASCAR’s national nightmare.