KANNAPOLIS — It’s not often race fans stand quietly in a crowd, but they did Sunday as Dale Earnhardt’s hometown eulogized him in what probably will be one of the last memorial services for the racing legend.
Earnhardt died Feb. 18 in Daytona Beach, Fla., in a crash on the final turn of the Daytona 500. Still, the message at the service at Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium — home of the minor league Kannapolis Intimidators, of which Earnhardt was a part owner — was one of victory.
Speakers filled the service with references to God and framed it in scripture. About 4,500 attended, stadium officials estimated. They came from Kannapolis, all over the U.S., even Canada and England, officials said.
Earnhardt’s family, including his mother, Martha Earnhardt, and his extended family nearly filled a small section of the stadium. Speakers included the driver’s oldest son, Kerry, and two sisters, Kay Snipes and Cathy Watkins.
Kerry Earnhardt thanked everyone for their show of respect and asked that fans continue their support of NASCAR and the race teams his father owned.
Snipes read a Bible passage from the Second Book of Timothy that says, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
“Dale Earnhardt has finished his race, but more importantly, he kept the faith,” Snipes said. “Now, we must run our race and make sure that we keep the faith.”
Against the backdrop of the slowly blackening sky, family, friends and fans and some in the mainly black-and-red-clad crowd who considered themselves all three recalled their hometown hero.
“Each one of you ... you all have your memories of Dale,” Mayor Ray Moss said.
A flag corps from South Rowan High School, dressed in school colors that also are Earnhardt’s signature black and red, marched to a single slow drumbeat and presented three flags with the racer’s No. 3.
Local singer Rick Allman sang “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art.”
A six-foot-tall picture of Earnhardt leaning against his No. 3 Chevrolet, part of a larger picture painted by Concord artist Sam Bass after Earnhardt won the 1993 Coca Cola 600 at then Charlotte Motor Speedway, stood near the podium.
Doug Stafford, now a vice president at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, met Earnhardt that day. He drove the racer and his wife to the press box where reporters waited to interview Earnhardt.
“He was a great back seat driver, telling me I could squeeze my car through some unbelievably tight spots to get him to the press box on time,” Stafford recalled. “Well, with lots of praying and Dale navigating, we made it without so much as a scratch on my car.”
But Stafford said Earnhardt, who prayed before races and taped scripture to his dashboard, has won a bigger victory now and is “in the winner’s circle with the ultimate number three: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
Local officials remembered the driver’s earthly accomplishments, but said fame never inflated Earnhardt’s ego to the point that he kicked the local dirt from his boots or forgot the textile mill workers who loved him before he was famous, named a road after him and held a day in his honor in 1993.
“Dale was always proud to tell the whole world that he was from Kannapolis, N.C.,” said Tom Dayvault, Cabarrus Regional Chamber of Commerce president. “He said these words many times: ‘Those folks like me.’ ”
Dayvault invited all those in the crowd who weren’t from Kannapolis, and all the people watching the service on television locally and nationally, to consider themselves part of Earnhardt’s hometown.
U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes of Concord said he’ll ask Congress on Tuesday to honor Earnhardt.
Moss remembered Earnhardt as being humble. He said the driver declined to speak at a 1998 event where city leaders presented his mother, Martha, with the key to the city, because he didn’t want to steal the spotlight.
“My estimation of Dale Earnhardt rose much higher that day,” he said.
Then Moss invited everyone in the crowd to light the candles provided by the city and to quietly remember the man called The Intimidator in their own ways.
And they did, with tears, with silence, with reverence, many holding three fingers aloft.
Then the crowd, accustomed to cheering its hero, had stood quietly long enough. They broke the silence to remember the driver in death as they honored him in life.
“How ’bout that 3 car!” one man hollered.
“Whoooo!” the crowd answered as one.
“Earnhardt!” another man yelled.
“Whoooo!”
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