By Ron Lemasters, Jr.
photographer: Sam Sharpe, Harold Hinson, Floyd Coffman, Nigel Kinrade, Paul Melhado
Six years ago, it seemed as if Dale Earnhardt was a hair’ s breadth away from rewriting NASCAR history, dethroning the King of Stock Car Racing, and crowning the epoch of Earnhardt with his eighth Winston Cup title.
There were T-shirts made touting the "7&7" status of both Earnhardt and The King. Talk was rampant about how soon there would be a new all-time leader in championships. Earnhardt was, as they say, a mortal lock for 8, even 10 titles by the time he was through.
Alas, history is not so easily made, nor are kings willing to give up their crowns. The fact that Dale Earnhardt has not won that pivotal eighth title is a matter of record, and each year that passes speeds The Man Who Would Be King that much further away from his appointed date with a legacy surpassed by no other driver.
How did it happen?
That’ s easy enough to answer. In the six years since his last title in 1994, a new Crown Prince has come along in the person of Jeff Gordon, who has won half those six titles. Terry Labonte won in 1996 and Dale Jarrett won in 1999, each taking a turn at the top of the heap and robbing Earnhardt of another chance. At 49, it’ s not like he has that many years left at the peak of his game.
There are also the injuries he’ s suffered. Earnhardt went through three or four seasons with nagging injuries and other maladies that had nothing to do with race cars on racetracks. Broken bones, a mysterious fainting spell just before the Southern 500 one year, and surgery to correct some nerve damage.
It’ s not as if Earnhardt hasn’ t thought about passing Petty. He just didn’ t talk about it much before he tied the King with his seventh championship in 1994.
"In Stock Car racing, Richard Petty will always be the King," Earnhardt was fond of saying. "No one will ever outdo him."
In 1998, when he won the Daytona 500 for the first time, someone asked him if his career was complete. "Hell no," he said. "We want to win that eighth championship. That’ s what my life and career has been all about: winning champion-ships. Nobody’ s ever won eight before, and that’ s what we’ re shooting for. I think we’ ve got a great shot at it this year, and we’ ll keep going from there."
Of course, that was the year Jeff Gordon laid 13 victories and 26 top five finishes on the field, and his 364-point victory margin over Mark Martin was the largest since Earnhardt’ s record 444-point bulge in 1994. Richard Petty won his seven titles in an era when stock car racing was a somewhat regional sport. Earnhardt’ s first, in 1980, came as the tide toward national appeal and acceptance was just beginning to run. The six titles since then--in 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994--have come in an age when the tiniest margin loomed large enough to drive a transporter through. The competition was better top to bottom, and several of Petty’ s toughest competitors raced sporadically, like David Pearson and Cale Yarborough.
"People didn’ t run for championships then," Petty said a few years ago in a newspaper interview. "They ran to win races. When the season was over, they added it up. There could have been three or four championships I could have won if I had been looking at it that way."
Earnhardt has not had that luxury. These days, everything is about championships. There is no cherry-picking, and missing a race means that your team is in trouble or you’ re about out of money--the new official fuel of NASCAR.Legendary Charlotte Observer reporter Tom Higgins once asked Petty if he could compare himself and Earnhardt. Petty said it wasn’ t that simple. "It’ s one of those deals where you can’ t compare," Petty said. "It’ s like Hank Aaron beating Babe Ruth. They did their things in different times. Same with me and Dale. Right now, he’ s the top dog going through here.
I went through with Pearson, Cale Yarborough, Fred Lorenzen, and Bobby Allison. So where would that put Earnhardt if he had run against them? He’ d be up there with them. But if you go back and try to figure out of all the drivers who’ s the best, there ain’ t no such thing."
What are Earnhardt’ s chances of catching Richard Petty and winning that eighth title? That question is moot if he should not manage to catch Bobby Labonte and Dale Jarrett in the race for the title this season. This 2000 season has been Earn-hardt’ s best since at least 1996, when he finished fourth in the points behind Terry Labonte, Jeff Gordon, and Dale Jarrett. Since then, the best Earnhardt has finished in the points was fifth in 1997. In 1998 he slipped to eighth and was seventh in 1999.
This is his best chance to get the magical, mystical eighth title in the past three seasons. As of mid-August, he was third in points behind Bobby Labonte and defending champion Dale Jarrett, and he’ s running as well as anyone these days. In his heyday, Earnhardt won titles with bruising efficiency, stringing together top five and top 10 finishes like popcorn on a holiday garland. By the time the season hit the home stretch, he was usually so firmly in control the race was for Second Place, the title all but won.
Gordon’ s three-titles-in-four-years domination of Winston Cup racing from 1995-98--doing Earnhardt’ s run of three titles in five years one better--set a new standard, one the old master has had a little trouble living up to. Certainly, he can still rumble with the best of them, but he’ s not The Intimidator of old anymore. What advantage his apparent willingness to do whatever was necessary--sometimes fair and sometimes smudging the line between right and wrong--gave him in those years, it has been erased by a combination of time and changing attitudes.
Has he lost the edge?
Has time, the enemy of all men, finally caught up with him? No one but Earnhardt can be sure, but it’ s just possible that some of Earnhardt’ s best racing may be yet to come.
"I think I’ ve been a good driver the whole time," Earnhardt said of his recent woes. "I enjoy the pressure. I thrive on it. I’ m not one to go out and overdrive the corner because someone is pressuring me into the corner. I try not to do that."
His son, Dale Jr., sees that familiar killer instinct in his father this year. "I’ m really excited about it, the opportunity for him to get his eighth championship," Dale Jr. said recently. "I’ ll be right there beside him if he does. He just really got pumped up this year, not so much for the eighth title but just to be running good again. He is such a hard guy to figure out." What’ s not hard to figure is his largely unspoken desire to win number eight.
Is time running out on Earnhardt? Yes and no. He’ s signed to drive for Childress through the 2003 season, giving him at least another four shots at the record. In addition, he owns a two-car Winston Cup team. Both his son Dale Jr. and teammate Steve Park have won races this season, proving that those teams could, if necessary, be the ones Earnhardt uses to take the crown from Petty’ s head. "I’ ve got four years of racing left, at least," Earnhardt said. "Who knows--I might even drive another car with my own team. I’ m not ruling anything out."