NASCAR fans, mark your calendars: April 29 will become Dale Earnhardt Day in Virginia under a proposed House of Delegates bill. And the bill’s backer, Delegate Danny Marshall, R-Danville, has a memorable connection to the famed racer.
Earnhardt died in a final-lap crash in the 2001 Daytona 500, ending a career that included seven championships, the same as Richard Petty. Only two weeks prior, he raced against Marshall in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, a 24-hour race with four-driver teams.
Marshall is co-owner of Synergy Racing Inc., which competes in both classes of Rolex Sports Car Series road racing. They had the garage next to Earnhardt’s during the 2001 race. Marshall recalled the veteran oval racer’s excitement about the competition.
“We talked about his thoughts about driving the Corvette compared to driving in NASCAR,” Marshall recalled. “He was talking about how well it handled, the brakes, so and so forth. We race in the rain, and he was a little reluctant about driving in the rain.”
During the rainy race, they saw each other again. At 2 a.m., drenched by the six inches of water sloshing around inside of his car, Marshall “was thinking, ‘This is usually fun, but this is not fun.’ So on the infield, I looked to my right hand side and there is a number 3 Corvette passing me. I looked at that open-face helmet that he always wore. It didn’t take him long to learn about driving in the rain,” he said of Earnhardt, who finished fourth overall.
Earnhardt brought a boost to the race’s publicity and said he planned to road race in the future. But he died after crashing into the outer wall of the Florida track.
Marshall is optimistic the bill will pass.
“I don’t think that we should have any opposition to this,” said Marshall. “It’s created some excitement with folks. Back when he was alive people either loved him or hated him. Since he’s passed away, even the folks who were not his fans recognize what he did for the sport.”
The bill is part of an effort by Dale Earnhardt Inc. to get the celebration listed on the calendars of every state with a NASCAR track. It passed in Georgia in 2005 and in Mississippi last year, a state that doesn’t have a track on the race circuit. Marshall hopes to have the bill signed into law during one of the two NASCAR races at Martinsville Speedway this year.
As for Synergy Racing, their season starts with entering three Porsches in this year’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, Jan. 27-28. They will face off against racers Jeff Gordon, Helio Castroneves and Sam Hornish Jr.
“I’ll be here in session on Friday. We usually get out of here at 1 o’clock,” Marshall said casually. “I’ll catch a plane from Richmond and head south.”