Twenty years. Twenty Daytona 500s. Seven championships, and about thirty wins at Daytona in every other race they run there, and never the big one. Until Sunday.

My name is Anthony Nason. I'm 47 years old and I work second shift at the towel mill in Kannapolis, North Carolina, the same town Dale Earnhardt grew up in. I have followed this man since his rookie year in 1979. I missed the race on Sunday because the mill doesn't care what day it is, but my wife Sherry taped it, and I heard the finish on a radio in the break room with about forty other people. When that yellow came out at the end there was so much hollering the supervisor came running thinking somebody got hurt.

I drove home at 11:30 that night and the horns were still going on Main Street. I sat up till three in the morning watching the tape. Then I watched it again Monday before work. I'll probably watch it again tonight.

THE RACE

This was the 40th Daytona 500, and it was NASCAR's 50th anniversary season to boot, so everybody was already making a big deal before the green flag. Dale had won his qualifying race on Thursday the way he has every year since 1990, so we all knew the car was good. But we knew that every year.

He ran up front all day in the black No. 3 Goodwrench Chevrolet and he was leading late, and every one of us was waiting for the thing to happen. A tire, a bad pit stop, somebody getting a run on him at the end. That's how it always went.

This time the thing that happened was good luck for once. Coming around toward the white flag with him out front, there was a wreck back in the pack and out came the yellow. Under the rules, the field freezes where it is when the caution flies. So he took the white flag and the yellow flag together, rode around one more lap behind the pace car with Bobby Labonte stuck in second, and took the checkered flag. Nobody could pass him. For once, nobody COULD.

Then came the part that got me. When he came down pit road to go to victory lane, the crews from just about every team in the garage, guys who've been trying to beat him for twenty years, lined up along pit road and reached out to shake his hand as he went by. A long line of them. You don't see that. That tells you what it meant, not just to his fans but to the men who race him.

After that he drove out into the infield grass and spun the car around and around and tore it all up. Good. Let 'em plant new grass.

THE DROUGHT

If you're not a race fan you might not know how strange this was. Dale Earnhardt OWNED Daytona. He has won around thirty races there: the qualifying races, the Busch Clash, the July race twice, Busch races, IROC races. Everything but the 500. And the ways he lost it, you couldn't make them up:

And it wasn't only Daytona. He hadn't won ANY Winston Cup race since Atlanta in March of '96, almost two years. He got hurt at Talladega that summer, and last year he went the whole season without a win, and you had people in the papers saying he was done. Some of them work at my mill. They have been quiet this week.

THE MAN AND THE 3

Dale grew up in Car Town, the part of Kannapolis where the streets are named after cars. His daddy, Ralph Earnhardt, was one of the best short-track racers there ever was, and Dale learned everything working on his daddy's cars. He didn't have money and he didn't have anybody handing him a ride. He scraped and borrowed and raced on dirt till somebody noticed.

Somebody did. In 1979 he was Rookie of the Year, and he won his first Winston Cup race at Bristol that April. In 1980 he won the championship, which no driver had done the year after his rookie year. He's driven the No. 3 for Richard Childress since 1984, and the car's been black since 1988. His crew chief now is Larry McReynolds.

Around here everybody has a story. Everybody's cousin went to school with him or sold him a part or saw him at the barbecue place. People in other towns think he's mean because of how he drives. People here know he's the same as us, just faster.

SEVEN WINSTON CUP TITLES

Seven, tied with Richard Petty for the most ever. Number eight would make it his alone. Which brings me to...

MY TRIPS

I've been to Charlotte every May since 1979, the 600 and most years The Winston too. It's just down the road from here, and from the backstretch seats you can see the whole place. I've been to Rockingham a dozen times, and to Darlington twice, and to Bristol once, which everybody should do once, and to Daytona exactly one time, in 1987, the year Bill Elliott won it, and I got sunburned so bad I couldn't sleep on my back for a week.

My buddy Homer McCall from the mill and I have tickets for Rockingham this Sunday, February 22. We're switching shifts with two of the boys to get Saturday night and Sunday off. If he wins two in a row I may just lie down in the infield like he did with the grass.

Full Rockingham write-up next week!

MY 1998 PREDICTIONS

1. Earnhardt wins title number eight. I'm serious. The pressure's off now. Watch him go.
2. Jeff Gordon wins a lot of races. I hate to say it. My buddy Joey Cheatham will remind me I said it. He's a Gordon fan. Somebody has to be.
3. Dale Jarrett and Mark Martin are right there at the end like always.
4. Bobby Labonte wins at least twice.
5. Rookie of the Year: Kenny Irwin.
6. Sherry and I make it to Daytona in July. She says I'm dreaming. I'm putting it on the Internet so it's official.