Dale Earnhardt's last gift

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Dale Earnhardt's iconic black No. 3 Chevrolet careened up the 31-degree banking into a concrete wall in Turn 4 during the 2001 Daytona 500. And five years later, NASCAR still feels the impact.
In the year before Earnhardt's fatal wreck on the final lap at Daytona International Speedway on Feb. 18, 2001, three other drivers in the sport's top three series died in separate incidents. While the deaths of Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin and Tony Roper brought attention to the danger in stock-car racing, the death of Earnhardt, a seven-time champion in NASCAR's top series and the sport's most popular driver, galvanized an industry and accelerated a safety revolution.
"What went through a lot of drivers' minds was that if Earnhardt could get killed like that, what about me?" retired NASCAR President Bill France Jr. said.
"You hate to say this, but you have to," said H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, president of Lowe's Motor Speedway. "Earnhardt's death got us all moving fast, which needed to be done. There's never been the death of a race driver that's had more of an impact."
There is tragic irony in Earnhardt's death, which a NASCAR-funded report said was "most likely" caused by the back-left portion of his head striking the steering wheel or to the left and behind the driver's seat, causing a basilar skull fracture.
In January 2001, biomedical research scientist Dr. John Melvin had come to Daytona on behalf of General Motors to brief NASCAR drivers on the benefits of a head-and-neck support system known as the HANS, which was already in use in open-wheel racing. Melvin knew if he could persuade Earnhardt to wear a HANS, it'd be far easier to get others to try it. But Earnhardt was steadfast in his refusal to wear the restraint system, once calling it a "noose."
"We wanted to make him our poster boy for safety by getting him to change," Melvin said. "(But) we never got quite that far with him."
Jarrett among first on board
After those briefings, Dale Jarrett began incorporating the HANS into his No. 88 Fords. He was one of a handful of drivers wearing head-and-neck support in the 2001 Daytona 500. That number grew rapidly in the aftermath of Earnhardt's crash.
"It accelerated everything a hundred-fold," Jarrett said. "There are things that we have put into place today that we'd still just be considering, but that made us realize that we couldn't afford to have that happen again."
And it hasn't.
No driver has been killed in a crash in NASCAR's Nextel Cup, Busch and Truck series since Earnhardt. Last year, those three series completed their seasons without any driver suffering a major injury.
NASCAR has had other stretches without deaths in what is now the Nextel Cup Series, including only one death between 1975 and 1985. But racing continues to be a dangerous sport at lower levels.
An Observer study shows there have been at least 136 deaths in U.S. auto racing since Earnhardt died, with two of those coming in NASCAR's Featherlite Modified division. Last year, at least 22 people died in racing.
"Throughout 2000, having lost Adam and then Kenny and then Tony, there was a level of, `Man, what's going on?' " said NASCAR President Mike Helton. "There was a lot of effort going on. We were introducing the HANS device to drivers who didn't want to hear it, but the energy was picking up and we were making headway.
"When we lost Dale, that brought everybody to the table who wanted to do something and who wanted to play a role. It gave the industry the opportunity to amass that high level of interest and push at a rate that could not have been achieved any other way."
HANS, SAFER among changes
The 43 drivers in today's Daytona 500 are required to wear a HANS that is incorporated into a seat-belt restraint system that is closely regulated and inspected by NASCAR. Each car will have significantly more braces, padding and netting in areas around the driver's head, and each will carry a data recorder to measure the forces exerted on the driver in a crash as well as fire-suppressant systems that activate in the presence of high temperatures.The wall where Earnhardt hit, as well as the concrete barriers in all four turns and significant portions of the straightaways of the 2.5-mile Daytona track, is now fronted by SAFER barriers made of steel and energy-absorbing foam that help dissipate the energy generated by a car's impact at racing speeds. Each oval track used in NASCAR's top series has SAFER barriers in place.
Beginning next year, a "car of tomorrow" with additional safety features will be phased into use in the Nextel Cup series. That project is based in a research and development center in Concord that has become a central point in the sport's safety initiatives.
NASCAR has also instituted rules requiring HANS devices and pit safety equipment such as fire suits and helmets in its eight regional touring series, stock-car racing's equivalent of the minor leagues.
Those requirements don't apply to the 90 short tracks in NASCAR's weekly series. About 8,000 of the 9,000 drivers with NASCAR licenses race at short tracks.
"I think NASCAR has changed significantly," said Dr. Steve Olvey, director of the neurosurgery intensive care unit at the University of Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital and the former head of the ChampCar series' safety team.
Before Earnhardt's crash, Olvey was one of several experts who were openly critical of NASCAR's commitment to safety. But now, his opinion is very different.
"I have to give them an `A' over the past few years," Olvey said. "They had a series of problems that nobody had any idea would occur, but they found out what the causes were and they took the opportunity to make changes."
Safety actions accelerate
In a letter dated Jan. 8, 2001, Samuel Gualardo, the president of the American Society of Safety Engineers, urged Helton to increase the sport's safety efforts.
"They were not as responsive as we thought they should be following the deaths of three of their drivers," Gualardo said of the immediate response to that plea. "I think NASCAR at that time was very much like many organizations are. They had made some advances, but they weren't committed to advancing safety. "
Then, Dale Earnhardt died.
"NASCAR turned a corner," Gualardo said. "They went from a passive approach to a very active approach. NASCAR is absolutely safer than it was five years ago. From that point forward they have re-evaluated every aspect of the sport with respect to safety. They've looked beyond the track and have evaluated fan safety, pit area safety, crew safety and other aspects. I don't think there was a stone left unturned."
All crewmen who go over the pit wall now must wear fire-resistant suits and a protective helmet. Wheels and other major parts of race cars are tethered to keep them from flying into grandstands during crashes, and most tracks have beefed up their catch fences.
But it is in the area of driver safety that Earnhardt's crash had the most impact.
In the weeks before the 2001 season, Mark Martin said he had no plans to use the HANS. "When they come up with something that really works and is really comfortable, I will use it," he said. "If they don't, I will keep going the way I am going. For me, being comfortable in the race car is more important than that last little bit of safety."
Today, Martin admits that Earnhardt's death helped change his mind.
"I took the information that we knew about HANS device more seriously," Martin said. "I still didn't have one on the next week, but I had one on when I went to Talladega (in April 2001) because I knew I was going to wreck. I figured I would get used to it. I wouldn't drive without it now."
Slow acceptance
Dr. Robert Hubbard, who along with sports car driver Jim Downing devised the HANS, said the slow acceptance of the device was understandable and frustrating."The racing world in general didn't understand the safety problem that they had," Hubbard said. "The death of Ayrton Senna (in 1994) woke up Formula One like the death of Earnhardt did in NASCAR.
"In the 1990s, we didn't have a HANS device that was as refined as it is today, but it was frustrating because guys were dying that we thought we could have helped. It just wasn't in their awareness. Then Earnhardt got killed and it really shook people up."
Safety initiatives were already intensifying in early 2001 following the deaths of Petty, Irwin and Roper.
Jeff Burton, among others, was working on improving the driver's seat used by stock cars, and research on the SAFER barrier was well under way.
"I don't think Earnhardt's crash turned things around; I think it completed the turn," Burton said. "The turn started when those young drivers got killed. Unfortunately, people have a way of rationalizing things they don't want to deal with. When the young drivers got killed I heard, `Well, they were just so small and scrawny they didn't have enough muscle and that's why they broke their necks.' What a stupid comment, but people rationalize and there was some of that going on that wasn't conducive to improvement.
"But there were also a lot of people saying, `Wait a minute. Let's figure out how to do this better.' "
Change through tragedy
Kyle Petty said that after his son's death in the May 2000 crash at New Hampshire, he spoke regularly with Helton and other NASCAR officials about things that were being developed.
"Everybody believes that the day Dale got killed, NASCAR went, `Oh, my God, we've got to get hold of this safety stuff,' " Petty said. "That is truly false. I think NASCAR was a lot more proactive in this situation than anybody gives them credit for. They already had things in the pipeline."
But Petty agreed that the flow out of that pipeline has increased dramatically since Feb. 18, 2001. So, at least in some way, Dale Earnhardt has had precisely the kind of influence on safety in the sport as Melvin hoped he might have five years ago.
"A lot of good things, not only in our sport but in other facets of life, come from unfortunate things," Jarrett said. "It would have been a real shame if we would have lost our Superman, our hero, and nothing good would have come from that.
"We would much rather have done it on our own and have him still here being a part of it. But I think Dale would be pleased in knowing that because of all he accomplished, we have moved forward in a big way after his death.
"There is irony in that. But all of us are better for what has happened over these five years."
Driver Deaths
Three drivers in NASCAR's Cup and Busch series died during races in the year before Earnhardt, but the safety revolution didn't take off until after the Daytona 500 in which No. 3 died. Since Earnhardt's death, no other drivers in the top three series, including the Truck series, have died while racing.