Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 6, 1994 TAG: 9402060039
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BOB ZELLER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Ernie Banks never played in the World Series. Sam Snead never won the U.S. Open. And Jim Kelly has taken pro football futility to new heights with his fourth consecutive Super Bowl loss as quarterback of the Buffalo Bills.
But no one has managed to lose the big one with the flair that Dale Earnhardt has demonstrated in the Daytona 500.
Three times in the past four years, NASCAR's biggest star has led NASCAR's biggest race with 10 laps to go. Each time, someone else has driven into victory lane.
Earnhardt has six Winston Cup championships and zero Daytona 500 victories.
It's not that he can't win at Daytona International Speedway. He has won 20 races at the Florida track in five events - 13 of those since 1990.
But the 500 itself has brought only disappointment for the 42-year-old reigning king of stock car racing.
Earnhardt is so confident and so talented, he has a hard time believing something like this could happen to him. But he's learned a lot from it, as he said recently in an eloquent dialogue about his Daytona 500 losses.
"I think they've all been devastating," he said. "You know, that's a tough thing to do. You go down to Daytona and work and prepare all winter long for the race. And then you go in there and dominate that race, you're up front all day long and you come down to the last laps and you lose.
"Not once. Not twice. But three or four times.
"It begins to weigh on you. And it begins to weigh on the crew. Still, that's the intriguing part of Daytona for me now. I'm bound and determined to go down there and do whatever it takes to win that race and to defeat that race and be the Daytona 500 winner.
"But it's a tough sucker. And I can tell you one thing: I've learned how to lose that thing, and I've learned how to take it. I think I'm bound and determined to go down there and do whatever it takes to win that race and to defeat that race and be the Daytona 500 winner. Dale Earnhardt Six-time Winston Cup champion defeat in that race itself has made me a better loser, and to cope with it anyway.
"Gosh, it's tough to get out of that race car when you've run second and explain why you didn't win. Then you've got to listen to it all year long."
In his first Daytona 500, in 1979, Earnhardt led 10 laps and finished 10th. Thereafter, he led at least two laps in every 500 until 1985. He finished fourth in 1980, fifth in 1981 and second in 1984.
But his first taste of a defeat there that could be considered heartbreaking didn't come until 1986.
That year, he swept Speedweeks, winning the Busch Clash, his Twin 125 qualifying race and the Goody's 300 Grand National race.
In the 500, he led 34 laps and was poised to do battle in a two-car showdown with Geoff Bodine when he ran out of gas and had to pit with three laps to go. As Bodine went on to win, Earnhardt blew his engine leaving the pits and finished 14th.
Earnhardt had another shot at victory in 1987. He led 16 laps and was in front with 30 miles to go, but a gas-only pit stop on lap 190 took 9.9 seconds and he finished fifth.
It was in 1990 that he really began losing with distinction.
He won his Twin 125 and the Goody's 300 that year and qualified for the 500 on the front row. He dominated the race, too, leading 155 of 200 laps.
But going into the third turn on the last lap, as he cruised toward apparent victory, just as many fans were thinking, "Gosh, wouldn't it be incredible if something happened right now," Earnhardt ran over a piece of a metal bell housing, blew his right rear tire, drifted high in the turn and limped home in fifth place. The winner was unheralded Derrike Cope.
Earnhardt returned in 1991 to win the Busch Clash, his Twin 125 and the Goody's 300. He started fourth in the 500. He led 40 laps. He was in front as the field entered lap 195.
But Ernie Irvan, with a stronger car, went under Earnhardt in turn one and made the winning pass. Three laps later, trying too hard to catch up, Earnhardt spun coming off turn two. He took Davey Allison and Kyle Petty out of the race but managed to keep his car going and finished fifth.
In 1992, Earnhardt again won his Twin 125 and the Goody's 300 and had a spectacular victory in the International Race of Champions (IROC) event, going from third to first in the last few hundred yards. But the 500 foiled him again. He was involved in a big mid-race crash on the backstretch and never led a lap, finishing ninth.
Last year, Earnhardt went from 15th to first in five laps to win his fifth Busch Clash. He also captured his sixth Twin 125 and his sixth Goody's 300.
For the fourth year in a row, he was the favorite. Once again, he dominated the 500, leading 107 laps. But on lap 199, he drifted high in turn three and Dale Jarrett shot under him and held on to win. Jarrett led only eight laps, but his car was stronger than Earnhardt's at the end.
A strong argument can be made that only Earnhardt could have led as long as he did in 1991 and 1993, that anyone else driving the same car would have lost the lead long before Earnhardt did.
If so, there's a curious irony at work: His extraordinary talent is the only reason he has such a spectacular string of failures in the 500.
In any event, Earnhardt's futility has set the stage for a genuinely memorable triumph if and when he finally wins.
But at this point, he's assuming nothing.
"As fortunate as I have been in my career, if I don't win it, I don't think I will be devastated," he said. "A couple of times when we have lost it, those have been devastating losses. But those scars heal. . . . It works out. Another championship will make me forget it."
Keywords:
AUTO RACING
by CNB