Very few (if any) of my friends are Motor Sport fans, let alone NASCAR fans, but I am and have been for a long time. The L&T, bless her heart, follows the sport enough to talk intelligently about it, knows who the drivers are, and will watch with me occasionally, but I'm pretty sure that's just for my benefit (and it's appreciated).This weekend's Dayton 500 will mark the 10th anniversary of the death of one of NASCAR's all time greatest, Dale Earnhardt, something I don't think I'll every forget...
Sunday, Feb 18th, 2001 - We had just left Port Orlando on the Disney Wonder for the 1st day of our 1st ever cruise to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We had a blast at the launch party, but I knew that "The 500" was on that afternoon and wanted to at least see some of it. The L&T, sport that she is, agreed to go to the on board ESPN Zone to watch some of the race before we went to dinner. We watched for a bit (rooting for Mark Martin), and then headed off to a wonderful dinner figuring we'd get the results the next day or so.
Monday, Feb 19th, 2001 - Our first day in the Bahamas was fun, but we're not big shoppers so we decided to head back to the boat for lunch. On our way back I grabbed a local paper (I love reading local papers) to enjoy while we eating. We sat down, I grabbed the front section, the L&T sports (have I mentioned how much I love my wife?) and we started to eat. Then the L&T said "What?!?!" which obviously got my attention so I asked who had won the race - "Dale Earnhardt was killed!" - That prompted my own "Wait, what!?!?" moment. There on the 3rd page of the Bahamian Daily Sports' Section was news the Black #3 had been killed on the last lap of the Daytona 500.
I was never a Earnhardt fan, but I respected the hell out of the guy, and I'll never forget where I was the day after he died.
Such a surreal moment...
Posted by: Kirsten Smith | February 18, 2011 at 07:46 AM