The passing of Dale Earnhardt Sr. during the Daytona 500 of 2001 remains to date, one of the most unfortunate and tragic incidents in NASCAR’s history. But even though Earnhardt’s loss was felt beyond the sport itself in its wake, its impact within NASCAR was pretty big as well, considering the huge gap that was left in the garage. This was something that Mike Helton, the Vice Chairman of NASCAR, revealed in a 2019 interview with Kyle Petty.
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During their conversation, Petty brought up how years after that tragedy at Daytona, Earnhardt’s absence was still there in the garage area. “In that garage area, we were all lost boys at that point in time,” he described and asked Helton, “Did you all feel that?”
“Yes. Bill Jr., Jim France, and I talked about that, the fact that we recognized the reliance that we as a regulator of the sport had through his voice. We couldn’t tap the next Dale Sr. on the shoulder and say, ‘You’re it.’ It needed to be organic, out of the garage area so we were more or less settling in to see who would that be,” Helton replied.
He continued, “Gordon wasn’t ready to accept it although people said you should, you need to but Rusty Wallace, Dale Jarrett, and Bobby Labonte those individuals banded together to do it as a group instead of an individual until Gordon was kind of ready to be that voice.”
“I have to tell you and it’s probably because of my relationship or my career, there’s not been one as strategic and as pragmatic as Dale Sr. since then.”
NASCAR made the sport a lot safer after Dale Earnhardt Sr.’s passing
After Dale Earnhardt’s tragic passing, NASCAR took several initiatives to improve the safety aspect of the sport. Most notable of all was the adaption of the HANS device by all drivers, something Earnhardt refused to wear.
Then there’s also the introduction of SAFER Barriers, which NASCAR developed by INDYCAR and the University of Nebraska. These barriers ensured that if a racecar hit the wall, a big chunk of the impact would be absorbed by these barriers. There were also the 6-point seatbelt harnesses which eventually turned into 9 points, and then to an ‘All Belts to Seats’ system in 2015.
All in all, NASCAR has changed and improved a lot of things since Earnhardt’s passing, something reflected in the fact that since the 2001 Daytona 500, no driver has lost his life in the sport.
