This week, I saw for the first time “Dale,” the CMT Films documentary on Dale Earnhardt. The film has been hyped since its debut in select theaters through its appearance this week on the country music station as an emotional experience about the man who thousands idolized and who so many continue to memorialize.
I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t a huge Earnhardt fan. I didn’t take an interest in anything motorsports- related until 1999, so I missed most of his storied career, including his immortal 1998 Daytona 500 victory. Although I had respect for the man who is one of the greatest drivers of all time, I didn’t worship him as so many others did.
Yet, when I saw footage of Earnhardt in interviews, casting a reel into a local fishing hole with that one-of-a-kind grin beneath his mustache, I found myself in tears. There he was, and it seemed as if that wreck in the 2001 Daytona 500 had never happened and that the Intimidator is still just as alive and ornery as he appeared on screen. The last six years have all been a bad dream, and all of the things that have gone wrong with NASCAR since 2001 haven’t actually happened. Come race time, that No. 3 will be on track again and the fairytale will continue.
But that’s not the case. Again I found myself saying, “I can’t believe he’s gone,” just as I did months after his death, and just as so many others echoed during “Dale.” Not only did the film bring to life what Earnhardt had accomplished during his career, but it made fresh the emotional, lingering void his death has caused in the racing community.
There on screen was the heart and soul of NASCAR, a man’s man who wasn’t afraid to be honest and speak his mind, a blue-collar, working-class hero. Through the clips and segments of his earliest days through the build-up to his Daytona 500 triumph and his death, the film showed just how much Earnhardt meant to NASCAR.
So much has changed since that fateful day in February 2001, and it’s been said countless times, “If Earnhardt was still alive…” this and that wouldn’t have happened. But revisiting those times when Earnhardt was such a powerful presence — even those times before I took an interest in racing — through the film, really puts things into perspective and makes you realize just how much has changed in the last six years.
What would Earnhardt say about NASCAR’s abandonment of its roots to expand into new markets to gain new fans and to make more money? What would he say about the youth movement that has drivers moving to the series’ top level without paying their dues? What would he say about the mergers and the sell-outs and everything that seems to suggest that the series is forgetting its roots?
I have no answers, but “Dale” truly was an emotional experience. Thank you, CMT, for showcasing NASCAR’s ultimate legend and reminding us what this series used to be in its heyday.