THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 29, 1996 TAG: 9607290138
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 68 lines
Dozens of drivers have walked through the doors of the infield care center at the north end of the garage after big crashes at Talladega Superspeedway in the 1990s.
Dozens of drivers have faced the cameras and microphones outside the care center gate and then made the long walk through the garage to their transporters.
But for more than 10 years, Dale Earnhardt was never one of them.
That changed Sunday in the DieHard 500.
The seven-time Winston Cup champion had one of the worst crashes of his long career and was so badly bruised and battered that he never did make it back into the garage.
Earnhardt was taken to Carraway Methodist Medical Center in Birmingham, where he was diagnosed with a fractured left collarbone and a fractured sternum. He was to be kept overnight for observation because of the potential of a bruised heart, track spokesman Jim Freeman said.
The man who faced the cameras for Earnhardt outside the care center Sunday was Richard Childress, his car owner.
``I'm sure he'll be OK,'' Childress said. ``But he took a heck of a ride. I'm just happy he's up and talking.''
There were two huge crashes in Sunday's race. The one involving Earnhardt occurred in the tri-oval on lap 117 when the cars of Ernie Irvan and Sterling Marlin came together at the head of the pack. That turned Marlin into Earnhardt, who was leading. Both Marlin and Earnhardt went into the outside wall nearly head-on.
Earnhardt's car flipped up on its side and slid on the track in that position long enough for the sheet-metal body to wear through the roll cage in several spots.
Then, while Earnhardt's car was still on its side, it was clobbered by other cars. Derrike Cope's car slammed into the rear deck lid. Robert Pressley's car hit Earnhardt's car in the roof, caving in the roof and top front roll bar to within 6 inches above the gearshift knob.
Earnhardt was briefly knocked out in the crash and did not respond to Childress' repeated calls on the radio. But he finally emerged from his car and briefly rested on a stretcher. Then he got up, holding his chest, and slowly walked to the ambulance.
Childress said he wasn't thinking about this Saturday's Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, where Earnhardt is the defending champion.
``Just having him talk to me is all I care about,'' he said.
GIBBS HONORED: The crowd watching the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction parade Saturday in Canton, Ohio, was a football crowd, but Joe Gibbs soon found out there were some racing fans there, too.
`You've got 250,000 people lining the streets, and they're all cheering,'' Gibbs said Sunday at Talladega. ``And as I went down through there, I could hear people yelling `Bobby Labonte!' and `Go 18 car.' A bunch of race fans were up there telling me they'd be at Talladega.''
Gibbs said he didn't realize how great the honor was until he arrived in Canton for the ceremony.
``You can't guess what it's going to be like until you get up there,'' he said. ``On Friday we had a get-together with all the past enshrinees, and all the people in the room were in the Hall. They wouldn't let the induction class talk. Everybody else got up and talked.
``When you hear people like Ray Nitschke and (Tom) Landry and Bob Lilly get up and tell you what it meant to them to be in and what a rare fraternity it is, it made me more aware of what I was getting ready to do. You really realize what a select group it is.''
``I told everyone I wasn't sure I deserved it, but I wasn't giving it back.'' by CNB