|
NASCAR Winston Cup Firsts:
Start - May 25, 1975
Charlotte Motor Speedway
Pole - June 8, 1979
Riverside Speedway
Win - April 1, 1979
Bristol International Raceway
Titles and Awards:
NASCAR Winston Cup Champion - 1980, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
NASCAR Winston Cup Rookie of the Year - 1979
National Motorsports Press Association Driver of the Year - 1980, 1987, 1990, 1994; with Tim Richmond in 1986
IROC Champion - 1990, 1995
National Driver of the Year - 1987, 1994
Career Highlights & Timeline
1975 First NASCAR Winston Cup Series start at Charlotte Motor Speedway on May 25th
1978 Joined Rod Osturland's team
1979 Winston Cup Series Rookie of the Year
First Winston Cup victory at Bristol International Raceway on April 19th
First Winston Cup pole at Riverside Raceway on June 8th
1980 Winston Cup Series Champion becoming only driver to win rookie title and championship back-to-back
1982 Joined Bud Moore Engineering team
1984 Joined Richard Childress Racing team
1986 Winston Cup Series Champion
Shared NMPA Driver of the Year award with Tim Richmond
1987 Winston Cup Series Champion
American Motorsports Driver of the Year
NMPA Driver of the Year
1990 Winston Cup Series Champion
IROC Champion
NMPA Driver of the Year
1991 Winston Cup Series Champion
1993 Winston Cup Series Champion
1994 Winston Cup Series Champion
American Motorsports Driver of the Year
NMPA Driver of the Year
1995 Finished second in Winston Cup point standings
IROC Champion
1996 Finished fourth in Winston Cup point standings
1997 Finished fifth in Winston Cup point standings
1998 Won Daytona 500 in his 20th start and finished eight in Winston Cup points
1999 Finished seventh in Winston Cup Points
Dale's Team
Car Owner - Richard Childress Racing
Car- #3 Chevy
Crew Chief - Kevin Hamlin
Primary Sponser - GM Goodwrench
Other Info On Dale Earnhardt
Born April 29th 1951
Hometown Kannapolis, NC
Hobbies Was Hunting, Fishing & Boating
Dale Is Survived By His Wife Teresa, His Sons Dale Jr & Kerry & Daughters Kelly King & Taylor Nicole, & His Mother..
Dale Earnhardt Nascar Carrier Began In 1979 In North Carolina And He Was A 7 Time Winston Cup Champion Tieing Richard Petty With The Most Wins!
Dale Made More Race Winning's Than Any Other Nascar Driver Of Well Over 41 Million Dollars And Also Ran A Multi Million Dollar #3 Soveneir Business.
We Say Goodbye To A Legend
I Would Now Like To Take This Time To Say Goodbye To A Legend.. DALE EARNHARDT SR., The Greastest Nascar Driver Ever, Dale Made Nascar Racing Fun And Will Be Greatly Missed By His Fans As Well As Nascar, And I Put This Web Site Up To Send Out My Goodbye To Dale Sr, And For All To View His Life Work. He Lived A Great Life Achieving More Than What 90% Of Us Will Ever Dream Of And Thats Because He Put His Heart And Soul Into Driving, And To All Of Dale's Family Members, I Send My Deepest Condolences To You In This Time Of Sadness And Dale Will Always Be In My Heart And The Millions & Millions Of his Fans Across The World.. Goodbye Dale!
Nascar
|
 Update:
Expert: Earnhardt died of head whip
April 9, 2001 (AP)
ORLANDO, FL - Dale Earnhardt died when his head whipped violently forward in the seconds after his car hit a wall going 150 mph at the Daytona 500, an independent medical expert has concluded.
Earnhardt didn't die from striking his head on a steering wheel because of a malfunctioning seat belt, as NASCAR officials have suggested, Dr. Barry Myers said in a report released to the Orlando Sentinel on Monday.
"As such," Myers wrote in the four-page report, "the restraint failure does not appear to have played a role in Mr. Earnhardt's fatal injury."
Barry, a professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University, reached his conclusion after reviewing autopsy images of Earnhardt two weeks ago. His report was the culmination of an agreement between the Sentinel and Dale Earnhardt's widow, Teresa.
Teresa Earnhardt successfully sued to have the autopsy photos sealed four days after Earnhardt died at the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18.
At the time, autopsy photos were public records in Florida, but Gov. Jeb Bush signed a measure late last month making it a felony for a medical examiner to make the photos public. The Sentinel and the Sun-Sentinel of South Florida challenged the constitutionality of the new law in a lawsuit filed late last month.
The Sentinel protested the sealing of the Earnhardt photos in February, saying it wanted its own medical expert to view the photos for an investigative series the newspaper was writing on NASCAR safety.
The Sentinel and Teresa Earnhardt reached a settlement that allowed Myers to view the images, which would then be sealed permanently. A University of Florida student newspaper, a Deland-based Web site and the Volusia County Medical Examiner's Office, however, have challenged the legality of having the photos permanently sealed. A hearing is scheduled later this month that will also address the constitutionality of the new law on autopsy photos.
Myers was asked to evaluate whether Earnhardt's skull fracture resulted from his head whipping forward, a blow on the top of the head, or, as NASCAR had suggested, a broken seat belt that allowed the driver to strike his head on the steering wheel.
Speedway physician Steve Bohannon, one of the emergency-room doctors who worked on Earnhardt after the crash, said he thought the faulty belt allowed Earnhardt's head to strike the steering wheel of his Chevrolet. The force of the blow cracked the base of his skull and caused massive head injuries, said Bohannon, a NASCAR expert.
In his findings, Myers sided with other racing and medical experts who told the Sentinel that Earnhardt likely died because his head and neck were not held securely in place. Earnhardt suffered eight broken ribs, a broken breastbone and abrasions over the left hip and left lower abdomen, indications that the seat belt functioned properly through much of the crash, holding back Earnhardt's body, Myers concluded.
What killed Earnhardt, Myers concluded, was the weight of his unrestrained head whipping forward beyond the ability of his neck muscles to keep it from snapping away the base of the skull.
The autopsy found that the underside of Earnhardt's chin struck and bent the steering wheel, a blow that could have been enough to cause a fatal skull injury. But the head whipping by itself would have killed Earnhardt, Myers said.
Myers stopped short of saying that better head-and-neck protection would have saved Earnhardt. But he said such a device had the potential to prevent these injuries, which have claimed the lives of as many as five NASCAR drivers in the past 11 months.
 Legends Are Forever!
Dale Earnhardt.Com |
