(3:33). "He came up and was like, 'Hey, you can do this. From Senna to Earnhardt," during the investigation Dr. James Raddin, one of the lead investigators, was asked by NASCAR officials whether a HANS device would have saved Earnhardt. I've got it all! When he looks at that car, that mind is in overdrive, constantly trying to CSI what happened, how everything around him, all of that metal, rubber and foam, moved and bent and crushed in just the right way to keep him alive. ON THE FOX broadcast, Darrell Waltrip shouted encouragement to his brother as Michael snapped a career 462-race winless streak to become Daytona 500 champion. On February 18, 2001, the beloved driver took his last lap on that track. "Blaise was one of my best friends," says Jimmie Johnson, who made his Cup Series debut at Charlotte Motor Speedway that same week. I imagine that he knows. Calls of warning that were shrugged off by authorities or documents that revealed a corporation knew it was flirting with disaster but went on doing it anyway. The first Newman Bar was added in 2013, along the roofline, after an airborne Carl Edwards landed on Newman's roof in 2009 and later that same season Newman got airborne himself and landed on Kevin Harvick's roof and then airborne Kurt Busch landed on top of him in 2013, all at Talladega. That's when Bohannon realized someone else was in the room with them. From Associated Press. 20 machine took a hard right-hand turn and drilled the concrete wall with a perfectly centered shot from the nose of his Pontiac. Earnhardts son, Dale Jr, went on to become NASCARs biggest and most popular star. The impact also broke a left side lap belt that was already frayed, but multiple doctors interviewed said that, due to the nature of a basilar skull fracture, Earnhardt's mortal wound had already been inflicted by the time the force of the crash broke the belt. At the end of that week, while thousands of mourning race fans gathered outside Dale Earnhardt Inc. in Mooresville, North Carolina, like it was Graceland, Cup Series drivers showed up at the North Carolina Speedway in Rockingham wearing the HANS, the more rudimentary Hutchens device and a science-fair exhibit of extra nets, webbing and race seat attachments, all aimed at bracing the head and body. I never saw him. Dale Earnhardt signs an autograph after Daytona 500 qualifying on Feb. 10, 2001 (Kelly Jordan/News-Journal) Don Hawk (president Dale Earnhardt Inc. 1993-2001): Saturday night (the night before the race) he's getting in his yellow Corvette in the driver/owner lot of Daytona International Speedway. It looked -- and was -- awful. "I walked out after that. "Truthfully, when I took a look at him in his car, when you have no signs of life after a major blunt trauma, major car accident, the chances of being resuscitated and survival from that are close to zero, but we try heroic measures.". His non-fatal injuries were eight broken ribs, a broken left ankle and fractured sternum. "It's like the whole world has forgotten how dangerous motor racing is, and you should never forget that, never, ever, ever. Even the walk to get to that point had been different. Dale was in serious trouble." From 1989 until his death in the final turn of the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18, 2001, nine drivers were killed across NASCAR's top three series. ai thinker esp32 cam datasheet 0:43. There, NASCAR safety officials gave it an initial inspection, trying to dissect what went wrong -- and what went right -- during the horrific accident that sent the 3,300-pound machine into the wall and onto its roof, only to be launched more than 10 feet into the air when it was driven through by an onrushing car. "'Dad, what do you think about all that? "I feel like that car is a trophy of something that saved my life. That's energy that's leaving. If his phone starts buzzing during a race, he knows there's been a crash that needs his attention. One circuit later, he allowed Michael Waltrip to slide by, taking Earnhardt Jr. with him. "And watching Ken Schrader, quite frankly, move around the way he was moving around. The sudden stop is a drivers worst nightmare.. That is part of Earnhardt's legacy: safer cars. The NASCAR chairman asked him the same question about whether the HANS device would have saved Earnhardt. "Post-Dale Earnhardt's passing, that conversation shifted. Is there something right around the corner that we don't see that will sneak up on us again? "Official Accident Report No. People stopped reacting and got proactive.". But Newman sees that car all the time. With the next superspeedway race scheduled for Talladega Speedway in less than two months, the R&D team looked for any quick-fix issues that might have needed to be installed by race teams as they were building their cars for Daytona's sister racetrack. ONE BY ONE, cars started leaving the hospital to return to Daytona International Speedway. According to an article from 4 years ago, when asked on the whereabouts on the car Richard Childress said "I'd rather not comment on that." Most other sources say it was cut up and destroyed. Even after all these years, we still feel the impact of NASCAR's most tragic wreck. Medical crews were on the scene moments later but, despite their best efforts, there was little to be done but transfer Earnhardt to the ambulance and directly to the nearby Halifax Medical Center, where he was later pronounced dead. Schrader, whose car hit the wall adjacent to Earnhardt at much the same speed but at a far shallower angle, was completely unhurt. 8 cars, DEI, championships," he says. He won 76 NASCAR Cup races and earned over $42 million in winnings, per Racing Reference. Atop that roster of safety saviors is Dale Earnhardt. The veteran racer drove as if he were invincible, and time and time again, it seemed that way. We're going to look at this one day and go, 'Dang, can you believe they drove those cars? Dale Earnhardt was one of NASCAR's biggest stars when he died at the 2001 Daytona 500 in a last-lap . As the years have gone by, that seat belt controversy has faded in the wake of the real issue, the possible preventability of Earnhardt's death. The head-on collision meant his head had traveled straight forward, stopped before it could extend into a deadly head whip. But to the cameras and Patalak's trained eye, the blip was a solid test of the driver's HANS, seat and headrests. The father-son team was battling it out to the finish on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500. The tool that could have saved him wasn't some new invention that needed to be discovered. The sons of those other racers with roll bars named for them, Kyle Petty and Dale Earnhardt Jr., catch themselves watching Newman's crash and still can't believe it. Jim Utter remembers what it was like to be there on that most tragic of days. All of these events happened in the span of 80 milliseconds. It was a truly sad day, one that would be etched in the minds of the people that saw it, but there would be something good that came of it. So were the 150,000 people in attendance, as indicated by their roars whenever The Intimidator took the lead. NASCAR worked with IndyCar and the University of Nebraska to test the "soft wall" SAFER barrier, an aluminum and foam wall covering that sucks energy away from a race car upon impact. 'It's not how fast you go, it's how fast you stop.' Her husband tried to talk her into finding a different verse, something less ominous. But the fatal injury was a basilar skull fracture, with breaks in every bone where the skull meets the spine. We have to fix it.' "I stretched my neck so hard," the eventual 2001 Cup champion said. The 1998 Daytona 500 win was a popular one in the garage as seen by the amount of congratulations Dale Earnhardt received on pit road heading to Victory Lane. In the days leading up to the race, his car's garage stall was in between those of Dale Jarrett and Bill Elliott, both of whom were fitted for devices by HANS co-inventor Robert Hubbard. I knew when he got there it would be the biggest hug ever. "But it sure came back to my mind just about exactly 24 hours later.". "I went back in my bus in the room and shut the door to my bedroom and just sat there," Earnhardt Jr. says. A broken collarbone at Talladega and Earnhardt's rushed return had taken away his feel for the car. It was held on February 18, 2001, at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida, consisting of 200 laps and 500 miles on the 2.5-mile (4 km) asphalt tri-oval. "Tony's crash looked really bad, right? He believed the belt had likely broken via the force of the collision with the wall, so Earnhardt's fatal skull fracture had already happened. By summer, the crumpled No. The world began looking at racing in a completely different way after his autopsy results. And on yet another TV is footage of a high-speed camera from last fall's Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval event, pointed at a Cup Series driver as his car bounces off a backstretch barrier. "We went in there and knew it right away," he remembers now. Nowadays, the cars are designed to prevent things like blunt trauma to the head. There were really highly talented companies and individuals globally that wanted to figure out how to close the gap on the safety element after the 18th.". Most days, Dr. John Patalak, NASCAR's senior director of safety engineering, can be found with his staff in the R&D Center at the controls of superpowered hydraulic pulls and presses, stretching the limits of nylon window nets and conducting maddeningly slow compression tests of piping and foam, to see how they will react to the in-race pressures that are produced in fractions of seconds. However, in an interview 10 years after the crash, he did reveal: I saw a friend in trouble. Bohannon was still in the trauma room, watching a technician prepare Earnhardt's body for the mortuary. The organization made changes to make things safer, according to NASCAR. His death forced a garage full of people who have always prided themselves on their bravery to grapple with a sensation that is especially foreign among race car drivers. He made contact with another car and both vehicles hit the concrete wall. Kyle is the grandson of Lee Petty, winner of the inaugural Daytona 500 in 1959, and son of Richard, NASCAR's biggest pre-Dale Earnhardt superstar. He's in every roll bar, seat belt, HANS device and wall that surrounds them. He was so adamant in his distaste of the carbon fiber brace that when General Motors, Ford and NASCAR brought esteemed automotive safety expert Dr. John Melvin to a January 2001 Daytona 500 test session to make a presentation to drivers on its benefits, Earnhardt was the only no-show. To most, it is completely unnoticeable. But two hits from onrushing cars punted Stewart's car into the air. "We all knew that the biggest threat to keep one of us from winning the race was Sterling [Marlin]," Waltrip says of those frantic final 17 laps, running first with a mirror full of teammate Earnhardt Jr. and the black Chevy of Senior zigzagging back and forth to keep two different lines of cars at bay, the inside line led by Marlin and Rusty Wallace and the group in the outside lane led by Schrader. It's just like a bellow of shock and sorrow and fear.". But their thankfulness also comes with a warning. Before 1998, he had four runner-up . There's nothing Ken Schrader can do to erase the image he has of seeing Dale Earnhardt dead in his car. When we look back on Feb. 18, 2001, the day Earnhardt died at the end of that race, we find so much of both -- personal recollections about conversations that feel so foreboding now, and moments when so many racers chose to stick with the norm, even amid the constant sounds of safety experts' warnings, ambulance sirens and funeral parlor organs. We'll chew on that for a long while and then go into NASCAR. Earnhardts left-side lap belt had separated in the impact, allowing his body to twist forward and to the right inside the car. "There's a great photo of that moment," Petty says. Earnhardt died of a basilar skull ring fracture, the same injury that had killed three other NASCAR drivers - Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin and Tony Roper - over the previous eight months. But then Schrader's car hit Earnhardt in the passenger side door, creating a sudden surge of speed and turning both cars into the wall. To this day, all Schrader will say of what he saw is, "I just knew that it wasn't good. Theyre still working down there., Fox showed replays of the crash in the live broadcast. Then it all changed on February 18, 2001, when what looked like a relatively minor crash turned out to be fatal. For a fraction of a second, the nose of Earnhardt's Chevy corrected itself, pointed briefly in the right direction to resume racing. During driver introductions for the 2001 Daytona 500, Dale Earnhardt spoke with Winston Kelley of MRN. Stuff flying everywhere. 45 and Kyle Petty's HANS device was sitting in the cockpit waiting for him, one of only five drivers in the 43-car field to wear one that day. Safety was always a part of the plan, but after Dale's death, the focus leaned much more into a safety mission.". Schrader had walked to Victory Lane and delivered the terrible news of what he believed had happened in the middle of Waltrip's celebration, causing Waltrip to leave immediately. The longer-term projects were steered into the Next Gen folder, as in the next-generation model of NASCAR stock car that was already being designed for 2021 (now 2022 due to the pandemic). Newman said yes. There are sections of walls that now use energy-absorbing SAFER (Steel and Foam Energy Reduction) barriers that can absorb the energy from a crash, though there is still a push to make them cover more, according to SBNation. "And now I'm thinking, 'I wonder what's gonna happen with all this stuff?' France froze out Melvin after he publicly questioned NASCAR's decision to display a frayed and broken seat belt found in the No. Earnhardt was playing rear gunner to his Dale Earnhardt, Inc. team cars as they raced around the final lap of the race, to block any late runs from the chasing pack. Ryan Newman looks back at his crash at Daytona (3:33), How the Dale Earnhardt tragedy made NASCAR safer -- and saved Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch still not cleared from July concussion, Nemechek wins final NASCAR race at Fontana, Ky. Busch takes Fontana for 1st win with RCR, Rain pushes Xfinity Series at Fontana to Sunday, Rain washes out NASCAR qualifying at Fontana, Stenhouse wins longest Daytona 500 in history, Hill goes last to 1st to win Xfinity season opener, Stenhouse's Daytona win shows the 500 is 'crazier' than ever, Hamlin, Toyota drivers skip final Daytona practice, Johnson's team takeover irks NASCAR icon Petty, Beers, mullets and the Daytona 500: Inside Travis Pastrana's and Jimmie Johnson's friendship, J. Johnson tops Daytona 500 practice in return, Daytona 500 cheat sheet: Everything you need to know, IndyCar's Daly makes Daytona 500 with TMT, Trackhouse Racing signs Chastain to extension, Bowman secures Daytona pole; Johnson qualifies, Suarez signs 2nd Trackhouse Racing extension, Bowman signs 3-year extension with Hendrick, Dale vs. Dale: A Daytona 500 the Jarretts, NASCAR won't forget, Daytona 500 boasts eighth consecutive sellout, Ky. Busch apologizes for gun violations in Mexico, NASCAR's 2023 season will be a year of change, Daly, Mayweather team up for Daytona 500 run, Truex Jr. wins in NASCAR's return to LA Coliseum, "E:60 Presents -- Intimidator: The Lasting Legacy of Dale Earnhardt. On Feb. 18, 2001, the day Dale Earnhardt died, he was down in the Daytona 500 Victory Lane as "the hat dance guy" who made sure the race winners wore all the correct sponsor caps for all the right photographs. After a 462-race losing streak, Waltrip was offered a ride in a NAPA-sponsored Chevrolet for the '01 race at Daytona by his dear friend, Dale Earnhardt Sr., whose racing team entered three cars in that race for Waltrip, Earnhardt, and Earnhardt's son, Dale Jr. Waltrip . NASCAR 2023 at Las Vegas schedule, entry list, and how to watch, NASCAR 2023 at Las Vegas schedule, entry list, and how to watch NASCAR 2023 at Las Vegas schedule, entry list, and how to watch, The ex-F1 driver taking on NASCAR with a new team, Marques on taking on NASCAR Dr. Steve Bohannon had been a Daytona Beach resident since 1986, working at Halifax Health Medical Center, located less than a mile and a half from the speedway's start-finish line. Whatever that was. He was racing at Daytona International Speedway and was on the last lap. These included the uncommon severity and trajectory of the car's impact with the wall, an immediately prior collision with [Schraders] car that put him out of position and a separation of the left lap belt under load that allowed greater motion within the car.. There was this noise coming out of me that I can't re-create. What should we focus on to try and improve these things we've got going on?' 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