re: Earnhardt Senior Passing...Do You Still Remember? What were you doing at the time?

I think if he’d have just been seriously injured in that crash and came back he’d have worn the HANS. He was old school, tough and brave. He was not stupid.

It’s amazing to me that people are NASCAR fans outside of going to the actual races to have fun.

Being a NASCAR fan is like a beacon to proof you are a trashy person

I was watching as at the time NASCAR was appointment TV. It was FOX’s first race broadcast. I remember pre race a taped segment where Bradshaw did a ride along with Earnhardt. I also remember during a caution period, FOX captured Earnhardt flipping off rookie Kurt Busch, then showing the reaction of Earnhardt’s pit crew laughing their arse off over it.

2 hours later, it all went wrong. Like many, I didn’t think the crash looked real bad. But then DW saying “those are the kind of wrecks that hurt you” gave me an uneasy feeling.

Then Jeannie Zelasko interviewed Ken Schrader. When that interview was done, I had a terrible feeling of the outcome.

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he only hit the wall going about 30 mph

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Add about 125-130 mph to that.

I was 12 and 1/2 when he died. I believe I was on vacation with my family in Tennessee when I heard the news. Will always be a very tragic ending for one of the best drivers to ever do it.

I got done riding my dirtbike and watched the last 50 laps. Saw the wreck, didn’t think it was that bad of a wreck. Went outside for about an hour, came back in and saw it announced during the halftime of an NBA game that he died. I remember thinking and feeling like it wasn’t real. The next week at school it’s all anybody talked about.

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I never want to know what Ken Schrader saw when he looked into that car.

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He was basically internally decapitated IIRC, so that had to be a gruesome scene

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He was basically internally decapitated IIRC

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Correct. Basal skull fracture.

From what I've read, Kenny(Schrader) saw pints of blood, brain fluid and every bodily fluid imaginable in the cockpit. Just gruesome and he will take it to his grave. Junior and Kelley have never pressed him on it out of sheer respect.

He was dead the moment his car hit the wall.

I was at work delivering pizzas. I had made all my deliveries and was sitting in the parking lot listening to the end of the race before going back in.

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feel like Nascar officially died that day, and was never the same

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Feels like Nascar has died since then, though many of their problems are of their own making and precede his death.