Cars are designed to break apart on impact because energy, like lightning, searches for a place to ground. When a car hits, the natural place for energy to go is through the driver. That's why an exploding race car generally signals that the driver is ultimately okay, and why a queasy apprehension swept the Daytona International Speedway when Dale Earnhardt's Chevy barely bent after it hit the wall at Turn 4.

The crash stood in eerie parallel to an Earnhardt wreck that occurred five years earlier at Daytona's sister track in Talladega, Ala., and which happened to involve the same driver, Sterling Marlin. But in that crash, Earnhardt's Chevy skidded on its side, got hit on its roof by another car and went spinning on its grill like a top, landing on all four tires just in time to get drilled again. The Intimidator emerged with a broken sternum and a thumbs-up sign. That's what the 195,000 fans at this year's 500 were half-expecting him to do again.

Earnhardt wasn't nearly as surly as the image he cultivated. But he was truly bothered that he was tied with Richard Petty at seven Winston Cups. By the time King Richard was 49, his gifts had eroded away. Earnhardt, on the other hand, was enjoying a late-career prime that burnished his legend, the kind of prime that Elway, Jordan and Lemieux have enjoyed. Last season, Earnhardt finished second in the standings. Another Cup was not out of the question.

On the last lap of his life, Earnhardt was running third, trying to protect the cars ahead of him, driven by his son, Dale Jr., and his hired driver and friend, Michael Waltrip. It may sound trite, but in the world of NASCAR he was Capt. Miller in Saving Private Ryan, holding back three rows of cars with his Chevy.

If Earnhardt hadn't crashed, racing fans would've celebrated his third-place finish alongside his long-overdue Daytona victory in 1998. Said Jeremy Mayfield, driver for the Mobil 1 Ford, "After the race was over, I heard things didn't look very good. But, man, Earnhardt. You figure he'll bounce right back."

Earnhardt's death was the fourth in NASCAR in the last year. Kyle Petty, who lost his son Adam at New Hampshire last May and drove his No. 45 Sprint Dodge on Sunday, said after the race, "No matter where it happens or how it happens or even how prepared you think you might be for it, losing somebody close to you hurts. My heart just breaks for Teresa and the family."

In Earnhardt's case, the family is millions.

Shaun Assael is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at shaun.assael@espnmag.com. This article appears in the March 5 issue.