All-Star Race Serious for Earnhardts

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All-Star Race Serious for Earnhardts
Wednesday, May 16, 2007 5:45 PM EDT
The Associated Press
By JENNA FRYER

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) — NASCAR's annual All-Star race is supposed to be for fun, a simple Saturday night dash for cash with nothing important on the line. The Earnhardts never saw it that way.

Dale Earnhardt attacked the non-points event as if it was the most important race of the year, and his son followed that example. To this day, two of the most memorable runnings of the event are Earnhardt's 1987 victory and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s 2000 win.

With Saturday night's running of the Nextel All-Star Challenge, Lowe's Motor Speedway is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the elder Earnhardt's win, when he recovered from a slide through the grass to maintain his lead during a wild 10-lap shootout to the finish.

Famously referred to as "The Pass in the Grass," the move became part of Earnhardt's legacy.

"It was the greatest move ever made in NASCAR, maybe in motorsports history," said Humpy Wheeler, president of LMS. "Nobody's ever gotten a car that sideways in the grass and been able to save it. Only he probably could have done that because he was so skilled."

Earnhardt didn't actually pass anyone. He was attempting to pass Bill Elliott seven laps from the end by squeezing Elliott into the frontstretch grass. It failed, and Earnhardt instead spun into the grass.

He kept his car heading straight, drove through 150 feet of grass, and returned to the track to pass Elliott.

"It actually wasn't a pass, as everybody knows, but we'll keep calling it that because it's a neat sound. It was a save," Wheeler said. "It was one of the greatest races I think NASCAR's ever had."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was 12 years old and in attendance for that race, and one of his greatest regrets was not having an understanding of how spectacular the move actually was.

"I was too young to really understand how those things really impact the sport," he said. "I wish I'd been maybe 17 or 18 to have understood the impact that it had in the sport. It's still relevant today, and it's still as awesome as if it would have happened yesterday.

"You see guys do what it takes, and I think that was the definition for that on that day. There was really nothing anybody could do to try to take that away from him, it was an unimaginable will that he had that day."

His father's appreciation for the event was instilled in Junior, and it's made him take it seriously every year he's entered it.

He made the field as a rookie in 2000 by winning his first race in the weeks leading up to it. Then Wheeler, who famously predicts the winner in the days before the race, tabbed Junior to win.

The elder Earnhardt was furious.

"Dale Sr. got mad at me for doing it," Wheeler recalled. "He said `You're putting too much pressure on him, why'd you do that?' I said `Because I think he's gonna win!' He just kind of shook his head and walked off."

Junior got wind of his father's disapproval, and found it amusing because he already was so stressed out over putting in a strong showing in his first All-Star race.

"We was maxed out on pressure about that point," Earnhardt Jr. said. "You couldn't have had any more."

Winning that race remains the highlight of Junior's career, which spans 17 victories and a Daytona 500 win. But the All-Star event meant something to his father, who believed it was the one time that the best driver in the best car always would prevail.

If Junior had any doubts, they were erased in Victory Lane.

The elder Earnhardt never had been one to linger during his son's victory celebrations. He'd pop by briefly, then hustle home. But when Junior won the All-Star race, his father was right there for every last photograph.

"That was the only Victory Lane that he stood in the entire time for the whole half hour, 45 minutes that we were there," Junior said. "He was really enjoying not only the father-son relationship, but I think he was enjoying the fact that he had built a team that was the winner of the All-Star race.

"He told me, `This is a big deal, make sure you have fun with this. You enjoy every minute of it."

Earnhardt was killed the next February in an accident on the last lap of the Daytona 500. Earnhardt Jr. announced last week that he's leaving his father's company at the end of the season.

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