Fan’s dream, lucky penny help propel Dale Earnhardt Sr. to Daytona 500 win 10 years ago

By MIKE HARRIS AP Auto Racing Writer
Published: February 13, 2008

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Larry McReynolds couldn’t figure out where Dale Earnhardt had gone.
The day before the 1998 Daytona 500, a race Earnhardt was desperate to win in his 20th try, the unlucky driver had disappeared, leaving his crew chief alone to worry. Again.
“He had won the Daytona 498 or 499 so many times, you just wondered if he was ever going to win the 500,” said car owner Richard Childress, for whom Earnhardt won six of his seven NASCAR championships.
In previous races, flat tires, last-lap passes, broken parts, running out of gas and even hitting a seagull on the backstretch had seemingly conspired to keep Earnhardt out of the Daytona 500 Victory Circle.
This time, last-minute engine problems threatened to ruin Earnhardt’s chances.
“I asked his PR guy, ‘Where’s Dale?’ the longtime crew chief turned TV analyst said Tuesday. “He said, ‘Well, he’s out there with some fans.’
“I’m thinking to myself ‘He picked a hell of a time to rub elbows with these fans. We need him to get here and talk about this engine.’ “
But Earnhardt had a bigger problem when he finally showed up.
Stalking past McReynolds without saying a word, Earnhardt rummaged through the drawers of the team’s tool chests until he found some glue.
“He told me that when he had got out of the car on pit road there was a little girl there from the Make A Wish Foundation,” McReynolds explained. “Her wish was to come to Daytona and meet Dale Earnhardt. He had spent this time with her, and she gave him this lucky penny.”
With the penny set on the dashboard of the No. 3 car, the RCR braintrust moved on to the engine, deciding to roll the dice and change it.
“The thing I stressed to the guys was this engine change could be the most important engine change we ever make,” McReynolds said. “Obviously, when they dropped the green flag, there was no question it was ours to lose.”
With about 25 laps to go, it was McReynolds who decided to change just two tires on the final pit stop.
Earnhardt led everybody out of the pits and led the rest of the way, assured of the biggest victory of his career when he beat Terry Labonte back to the flagstand after a caution flag came out two laps from the end.
“We knew sooner or later the odds had to get in our favor,” Childress said this week. “With about two or three laps to go, Dale was leading, but there was some other guys close behind. I looked at McReynolds and I said, ‘We’ve been here before.“‘
Earnhardt’s victory, without question the most popular win in the first 49 editions of “The Great American Race,” has become part of Daytona legend.
After Earnhardt spun smoky doughnuts in front of the main grandstands, burning what looked like the number 3 in the grass, fans came out to roll in what he left, digging up pieces of the grass as souvenirs.
As Earnhardt drove slowly onto pit lane, every crewman from every team and just about every NASCAR official in the pits lined up to congratulate him in what TV announcer Mike Joy called “the world’s longest receiving line.”
Just three years later, Earnhardt was killed in a last-lap crash in the 2001 Daytona 500. That 1998 win was his only 500 triumph in 34 total victories at the famed track.
“He wanted that one real bad,” Childress said. “And to see him finally get it was the most rewarding part of it.”
That lucky penny remains forever affixed to Earnhardt’s winning car in the Richard Childress Racing museum in Welcome, N.C.
“I think we had used every lucky charm we could,” Childress said. “That one worked that day. To win the race, and to have the penny there and have the little girl involved was pretty special. It was emotional.
“A couple of years ago, we brought the little lady who gave Dale the penny to the museum. I took the wheel off and sat her down in the car. It was pretty amazing.”