NASCAR hall honors four – and one EARNHARDT!!!

If you stood at the front of the Crown Ballroom Sunday you saw black suits, blue suits, tan suits, silk suits, summer suits, expensive suits.

If you walked to the back of the room, which is in the Charlotte Convention Center near the NASCAR Hall of Fame, you saw T-shirts with pictures of cars and the signatures of the men who drive them. You saw sandals and sneakers. You saw ball caps, shorts and cut-off jeans.

When the Hall announced the last of its five inductees, there was a shout, loud and joyous, the first of its kind all afternoon. The shout came from the back of the room. It came when the name of Dale Earnhardt was invoked.

The longer Earnhardt is gone – it has been nine years and three months since he died at Daytona International Speedway – the more beloved he becomes. It’s as if he was everybody’s friend.

But there’s no need to airbrush his legend. A lot of fans couldn’t stand him. He drove as if he had the deed to the track. He often ran competitors, who had fans of their own, into the grass or off the wall.

But to those who adored him he was the reason to buy a ticket.

“He knew they were hard-working people that spent their hard-earned money to come and watch him race,” says Richard Childress, who owned the team for which Earnhardt drove and was his best friend. “He wanted to give them his money’s worth.”

Childress gave Earnhardt’s induction speech. Joining him on stage when he finished to accept Earnhardt’s Hall of Fame ring were members of Dale’s family: Teresa, his widow; sons Kerry and Dale Jr.; daughters Kelley and Taylor. The words inscribed on the ring were telling – WHERE THE RACE LIVES ON.

“I can remember the first time I heard Dale Earnhardt’s name,” says Childress.

“My brother was a chief steward at Caraway Speedway (in Asheboro) in the mid-'70s. He called me one Sunday morning and said, ‘If you ever want a driver you got to look at this kid Dale Earnhardt.’

"He told me Dale was racing Butch Lindley. They were going for the win and Dale never checked up. He came across the finish line with two wheels on the fence and still won the race.”

“Dale could do,” says Childress, “more with a race car than anybody I’ve ever seen. But the biggest thing he once told me was, ‘When it gets down to those last 50 laps, I want it more than anyone else.’ ”

“I’ll give you another quick story about Dale,” Childress says. “It was something he actually said at Talladega (Superspeedway).

"There were some drivers complaining and grumbling about going too fast. He said, ‘If you’re afraid to go fast, stay the hell home. Don’t come here and grumble about going too fast. Drag kerosene around your ankles so ants won’t jump up and bite your candy ass.’ ”

Darrell Waltrip, who had earlier introduced inductee Junior Johnson, didn’t like the Intimidator’s style when they shared the track. But he says he has come to respect it.

“Dale made no excuses,” says Waltrip. “You were in my way, you weren’t going fast enough. So I moved you. Get over it.”

Earnhardt drove the way many fans believe they would if given the opportunity.

Earnhardt drove as if he was doing the thing he had been born to do. So why give it anything less than everything?

Other aggressive drivers have emerged in Earnhardt’s absence. But they don’t bring what he did.

Earnhardt – and NASCAR – appealed to the working man. You could almost see the dirt beneath his fingernails. You could envision Earnhardt grabbing the roots of a stubborn stump and yanking it out of the ground, or angrily rearranging an underachieving engine.

He didn’t seem like working man. He drove like one.

And you didn’t push him around on the track, no matter who you were.

After Kelley Earnhardt says that her father rarely let people know about his kind acts, she adds: “Other times his help and advice was a little more public – right, Dale?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say there were a few times where I got some public advice from him,” says Dale Earnhardt Jr.

“We were in Japan racing. I was racing for the first time against the Cup competitors and my father. It was late in the race. I got some new tires. Only had a few laps to make those work for me.

"I got up underneath on turn 3 and 4. I just needed two inches to clear him. I didn’t have him cleared. I slid across his nose, up to the wall.

“He carried me all the way back down the front straightaway with my back tires in the air.

"That was the day I met the Intimidator.”

Now that the Intimidator has a permanent presence in the Hall, everybody can.