'A, you don’t see things like that happen, and B, you didn’t see it from the driver of that car.'
The start of the 1997 Southern 500 resulted in one of the most bizarre moments in Dale Earnhardt’s long and illustrious career.
On the race’s first green-flag lap, Earnhardt’s familiar black Chevrolet banged into the outside wall in Turn 1. The thought that he might simply have made a mistake or blown a tire disappeared when virtually the same thing happened in Turn 2. Clearly, something was wrong with the car or with Earnhardt.Veteran racing photographer Phil Cavali was standing in a team’s pit wagon along pit road when Earnhardt’s car stopped off Turn 2.
. “Sometimes he would be around; sometimes not. But everything seemed as normal as it could be. Then all of a sudden we hear the hit the wall.”When Earnhardt didn’t drop onto pit road, it became obvious that something was amiss inside the car. Now there were two big concerns in the RCR pit: What’s was wrong with Earnhardt? And, if he couldn’t continue in competition, who would drive his car?
“A, you don’t see things like that happen, and B, you didn’t see it from the driver of that car,” Triplett said. “It didn’t add up. There was no real indication before the race about trouble. He sat in his car and slept all the time, so looking at him and seeing him nodded over in the car would have been as common as hearing, ‘Gentlemen, start your engines.’”
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