Dale Earnhardt's Greatest Moment

Friday is the tenth anniversary of the death of Dale Earnhardt. That moment -- during the 2001 Daytona 500's final turn -- shocked the sports world, and it helped bring on some serious changes to improve safety in stock car racing.

The fact that Earnhardt's death spurred those types of changes is interesting when you think about the fact that Earnhardt said something had to change during the very race where he lost his life.

(This was something noted during an amazing Earnhardt documentary on SPEED Sunday night. If it re-runs this week, DVR it. Very well done.)

Instead of looking back to the 2001 race, here's a peek back three years earlier, to Earnhardt's greatest moment as a driver.

For the longest time, he couldn't win the Daytona 500, which is the pinnacle event in the sport. That was until 1998.

And when he won, the NASCAR world celebrated. Even competing pit crews went crazy and wanted to congratulate the sport's biggest name on his biggest win.



The celebration finally made its way to Victory Lane, and it didn't slow down there.



Dale Earnhardt, Jr., has the pole for Sunday's Daytona 500. Expect the crowd to go crazy, especially if he's got the lead for more than just the race start.

Real, Raw, Gripping Emotion

There are two sides to the extremes of emotion.

The first is the jubilation. The raw, seemingly unending happiness that comes with the greatest of accomplishments.

For NASCAR driver Jamie McMurray, the lifelong dream came true Sunday evening at Daytona.

McMurray, a driver who was out of a job for a time last fall, won the Daytona 500 in his first points race for new employer Earnhardt Ganassi Racing. McMurray was a victim of the numbers game at Roush Fenway a year ago. He lost his ride because of a mandated downsizing of the Sprint Cup racing team, combined with numbers that showed him woefully short in the wins department.

With his new ride, the No. 1 Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet, McMurray didn't take long to prove himself.

If these plate races are like entering a random drawing, McMurray was the lucky winner Sunday. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone more grateful for his opportunity.



There is a flip side to this emotion, though. It's the feeling of losing someone you're immeasurably close to. For Brian Burke, this feeling became a reality nearly two weeks ago, when he got word that his son, Brendan, had been killed in a car accident while driving on a snowy road in Indiana. Brendan had been visiting Michigan State University, and was on his way back to his home base of Oxford, Ohio, where he attended Miami University and worked as a student manager on the men's hockey team.

For Brian Burke, a normally gruff and unemotional man in front of the camera, Sunday brought a whole new challenge. While he tried to put on a strong face for his U.S. Olympic men's hockey team -- he is the general manager of the team -- it's clear Burke is still hurting.

The hurt is evidenced by a great column from FanHouse colleague Lisa Olson, who spoke to Burke after his press conference in Vancouver.

"Born on December 8, 1988, eight pounds, eight ounces. Eight is a lucky number for people of Chinese descent," Burke said, his face aglow. "They kept rubbing his head, the nurses did. I said to one of the nurses, 'What's the deal?' and she said, 'Oh, he's a very lucky baby.' I said, 'Well, rub his foot because he's going to be bald for Christ's sake.'

"He was born with a lot of lucky signs around him," Burke said. "Just a magnetic personality even as a kid."

At Brendan's wake in Canton, Massachusetts, amongst the hundreds of mourners, Burke ran into one of his son's teachers. Everyone had their favorite story about Brendan; he had impacted so many people in so many different ways, and it warmed Burke's heart to hear them all. This teacher told him about an eighth grade dance, and a girl standing alone in the corner. Brendan walked over and asked her to dance, oblivious to (or maybe in spite of) his classmates' snickers.

"He didn't care what they thought, he just didn't want her to have a bad night," Burke said, beaming like a father boasting about a son who had won several Stanley Cups.

People wonder why we love our sports so much. A big part of sports should serve as an escape. Even those who can't escape reality sometimes need a temporary release. For Brian Burke, here's hoping the next two weeks are an opportunity for him to enjoy the fruits of his labor. He worked hard to build this U.S. team, and they have a chance to reward him with a medal.

If that happens, it will surely be another in a long line of emotional days for a man once viewed as being without emotions.

Shows what you get for judging a book by its cover.

Danica's Miscalculation

The NASCAR season opens for real this week, as Speedweeks hit a fever pitch at Daytona. The Sprint Cup drivers hit the track Thursday for the Duel races, which will determine the final starting grid for the Daytona 500 Sunday. They also serve as a last chance of sorts for the drivers who have yet to qualify for the race on speed.

(I'm not even going to try to lay the qualifying procedure out. Not sure I understand it myself. Click here for a primer.)

They are absolutely not the focal point of any media attention in Daytona. Instead, the Super Bowl of stock car racing is taking a backseat to the Go Daddy sideshow known as Danica Patrick.

With all due respect, Danica drove well in Saturday's ARCA series race at Daytona. She belongs in a stock car, and she will likely develop into a good NASCAR driver. In that respect, she is not a sideshow. None of what you're going to see at Daytona is a good thing. She isn't asking for the overwhelming attention she will get, and there's a good chance she'll be embarrassed by some of it.

However, the media has jumped on this like they jump on Brett Favre, Alex Rodriguez, and other needle-moving sports figures. They're all-in.

That means it will be a sideshow, unless Danica wins, which is extremely unlikely. That said, anything can happen in a plate race.

Patrick has announced she will run the No. 7 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet for JR Motorsports Saturday, as the NASCAR Nationwide Series kicks off its 2010 season at Daytona.

It's not a mistake because she's taking attention away from the race. She's going to do that in every race she runs. It's not a mistake because she appears to be -- at least for one race -- taking a ride away from Kelly Bires, who was signed to JR Motorsports to replace Brad Keselowski (now with Penske Racing). Bires was scheduled to run the full Nationwide schedule, but now will miss the first race because the other JR car is being run by team owner Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

It's a mistake because Danica doesn't need to expose herself to this spotlight so early in her stock-car racing career.

The season-opening race is a big deal for everyone, from drivers to crew members to media. Because it's such a big deal, a ton of Sprint Cup drivers will run the Nationwide race to maximize sponsor dollars for their owners.

The same kind of spotlight isn't on the Week 2 race at California. The entry list will be less cluttered with Sprint Cup names, and Patrick would have her chance to get her feet wet against competition less hungry for a win. It's more the kind of race she'll see in her other Nationwide Series starts, and it's a better race for her to start with.

Daytona, with its high banks, high speeds, and high tempers, is not a good place to give a rookie her first outing.

Perhaps she will drive the wheels off the car, impress everyone, and score a finish higher than anyone expects. But the potential for her to be involved -- directly or indirectly -- in the kinds of incidents she doesn't need to get into is too high.

For my taste, it's just too risky to send the rookie out for this race. JR Motorsports could have and should have convinced Patrick to wait for California to make her debut. There, she could have run a solid race, won the respect of her peers, and learned the give-and-take of stock-car racing at that level.

Instead, she's going right into the fire, and it isn't the kind of risk anyone should be taking.

CUE THE WHINING

Would you rather they sat and waited all night?

Really?

You would have waited four hours for the rain to stop and for them to get the track dried?

Quit looking for something to complain about.

Congratulations to Wisconsin native Matt Kenseth.