More often, the signs are much smaller, much more personal. Calls of warning that were shrugged off by authorities or documents that revealed a corporation knew it was flirting with disaster but went on doing it anyway. Sometimes, it's through a formal investigation of a historic event, like a terrorist attack or space shuttle explosion. When we look back on tragic days in our lives, we always find what feel like missed signs of what was to come. He got so excited that he leapt out of his seat. He talked about his fast race car and the even faster race cars of the team he now owned. He talked about his renewed life as a family man, finally getting marriage and fatherhood right on the third try. "I've got it all right now, Darrell, I've got it all!" Earnhardt said to Waltrip two days earlier, in an interview with the rival-turned-retiree-turned-TV analyst. No, she said - something was telling her that one was the right one. Her husband tried to talk her into finding a different verse, something less ominous. Per Earnhardt's request, she started doing it for him as well. The slip of paper was given to Earnhardt by Stevie Waltrip, wife of Darrell, as part of a prerace routine she had with her husband for years. And it was still there three hours later, when, in the infield grass at the bottom of that turn, Ken Schrader took that same window net down to talk with his old friend about their wrecked race cars, only to find the seven-time champion slumped over in his seat and the cockpit covered in blood.
It had been there when his crew secured his window net on pit road and he rolled away to take the green flag.
THE BIBLE VERSE was taped to the instrument panel of Dale Earnhardt's Chevy Monte Carlo when it veered into the Turn 4 wall at the end of the 2001 Daytona 500. "The name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous man runs into it and is safe." - Proverbs 18
FROM THE ARCHIVE DALE EARNHARDT SR LOOKS AHEAD TO 2001 SERIES
This is Part III of a four-part series on the life, death and safety legacy of Dale Earnhardt, 20 years after his fatal crash at the 2001 Daytona 500. Dale Earnhardt's death at the Daytona 500: Revisiting the day of the crash
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