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ALSO SEE
A Day for Dale
Punch: Earnhardt unselfish at the end
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Thursday, June 21, 2001
Loss hits particularly hard down South
By Wayne Drehs
ESPN.com
MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Danny Moore remembers a few years ago when Dale Earnhardt, like any common man, showed up in the century-old hardware store owned by Moore's father, looking to buy a classic wooden sled for his daughter.
|  | | Curtis Vance Jr., 8, hugs his father as he pays his respects among a collection of mementos outside Dale Earnhardt, Inc., in Mooresville. |
Eight inches of snow was on the way, a rarity for these parts, and Earnhardt didn't want his kids to miss out, so he purchased a vintage Radio Flyer hand-steered sled.
A few weeks later, Earnhardt was back at the hardware store, trademark grin drawn across his face, looking for some tools to help fix what had become a mangled mess of wood and steel. Turns out "The Intimidator" had run over the sled with his 4x4.
"So here's Dale Earnhardt, an absolute superstar in NASCAR, walking through this place looking for the tools to fix his daughter's sled -- a sled that he broke," Moore recalls. "It was vintage Dale.
"I think a couple of ladies that were in the store about fainted when he walked in, but he didn't mind. That's the way he was -- he was one of us."
One of us.
It should come as little surprise, then, when people in Mooresville -- the home of Earnhardt and his racing company, Dale Earnhardt Inc. -- compare his loss to that of their father, mother, brother or son.
After all, this is a town known as "Race City, U.S.A.," with street names like Performance Road, Raceway Drive and Gasoline Alley. And to many, Earnhardt was the center of this auto-racing world.
He was a small-town, lead-footed, huntin', fishin' kind of guy who made small-town nothingness seem pretty darn cool.
"He was nothing more than a good ol' boy," said Dale Gowing, editor of the 6,000-circulation Mooresville Tribune. "And everyone could relate to that. Here was just a regular guy that happened to be a stock car racer, something that a lot of regular guys dream of."
The close relationship many fans felt they had with Earnhardt is a big reason that his death has dramatically shaken not only his home state of North Carolina, but the South as a whole.
In Mooresville, the home of 25 various racing teams and the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame, reminders of the tragedy were everywhere Wednesday.
Outside a Ford dealership just off the interstate, a gargantuan American flag, large enough to devour some of the town's tiny houses, eerily rested at half-mast. Up the road on the marquee at a fast-food restaurant, a lone number "3" chillingly said it all.
Inside the Hall of Fame, fans gathered for pictures around the 1978 Oldsmobile Earnhardt drove to the 1980 Winston Cup Championship.
"It's hard to believe that he sat right there, in this car and that he isn't here anymore," said Aaron Stewart of Charlotte. "I still can't believe this has even happened."
At funeral homes across the South, doors were opened for grieving fans to both mourn and write to the Earnhardt family in registry books.
In Charlotte, the Observer can't print enough newspapers to satisfy demand for its special Earnhardt commemorative issue.
"The relationship Dale had with people of the South, the way he gave them something wonderful and real to be proud of, that can never be replaced," said Rachel Carlson, who made the drive to Mooresville from Columbia, S.C., to say her goodbye to Earnhardt. "There was this special connection there. He was one of our own."
So much so that on Monday, H.A. Wheeler, president of Charlotte's Lowe's Motor Speedway, compared the impact of Earnhardt's death to that of John F. Kennedy or Princess Diana. Few would argue.
|  | | Chris Waers, of Byesville, Ohio, left this cap on the iron fence outside DEI headquarters. |
"I don't remember the last time my dad cried, but he was a wreck Sunday night," said Rich Ketchings of Fayetteville, N.C. "So I don't think comparing this to JFK is out of line at all. If anything, JFK's death should be compared to his."
The mythical legend of Earnhardt is inviting because it reads like the grandest of rags-to-riches stories in the South. A 15-year-old kid grows up poor and drops out of high school to concentrate on auto racing. He gets married three different times, establishes racing ability on the rural dirt tracks of the South but can't escape near-poverty and make it to the big-time.
He lives in a little shack where bedsheets are used for curtains and a single mattress makes do for the bed. Finally, he gets a one-race tryout in 1978, which leads to a one-year contract, which leads to the first rookie ever to earn $200,000 as a NASCAR driver.
A star was born.
"People have a love for stories like his, where a guy starts out poor and goes from having nothing to having millions," said Jack Moore, owner of the Mooresville hardware store where Earnhardt bought the sled and was a regular. "He was the ultimate success story."
And Earnhardt rarely let his ultimate success story get to his head.
Unlike some of his NASCAR counterparts, this good ol' boy refused to go Hollywood after becoming a celebrity. He still attended the local Lutheran church, still pushed his cart through the local Food Lion grocery store and still bought his daughter the best sled he could find.
"He never got too big for his britches," Jack Moore said. "Success can change people, but it never changed Dale."
So much so that Gowing, editor of the Mooresville Tribune, believes Earnhardt wouldn't approve of the outpouring of emotions over his death.
"He'd want everybody to move on," Gowing said, "In fact, he once told Sterling Marlin that if he died on the track, he'd be doing what he loves and that nobody should shed any tears."
Nothing has been further from the case this week outside the gates of Dale Earnhardt Inc., as fans, friends and even adversaries have gathered to laugh, cry and dream about the fallen legend. They come in wheelchairs, walkers and baby carriages to lay flowers, balloons and posters along the 200-foot iron fence at the front of the complex.
"I'm not even an Earnhardt fan; I like Bill Elliott," said Dana Gray of Charleston, S.C. "But that doesn't mean anything anymore. This is something the entire racing community feels, no matter who you cheer for."
Amidst the flowers, cards and balloons is plenty of the unexpected, from an Earnhardt racing tire and black No. 3 mailbox to a package of Oreo's, reminiscent of an Earnhardt sponsor. There are a few bottles of Sun Drop, another sponsor and a soft drink as Southern as Earnhardt himself.
Then there are the cards, the hand-written notes and the poems posted on the fence.
One such poem:
When God put you on this earth, he knew what you would be.
You would be the driver of the black No. 3.
Now you drive in heaven, racing for the Lord.
I only hope that God didn't put you in a Ford.
Less humorous and more touching was this comment written on a giant "Thank you" card taped to the iron fence. It echoed the sentiments of racing fans from all over the South:
"Through your racing, you brought my Dad and I closer together when nobody else was able to. For that, you'll always be my hero."
Wayne Drehs is a staff writer for ESPN.com.
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