Dale Earnhardt
Daytona International Speedway, 1801 W International Speedway Blvd, Daytona Beach, FL
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Dale Earnhardt won seven NASCAR Cup Series championships between 1980 and 1994, tying Richard Petty's all-time record, and built a reputation as the sport's most aggressive and intimidating competitor, a style that earned him the nickname "The Intimidator" and made him one of the most polarizing, and most popular, drivers in NASCAR history. Earnhardt's black No. 3 Chevrolet became one of the most recognizable cars in American sports, and his aggressive, bumper-to-bumper driving style at NASCAR's high-speed superspeedways, Daytona and Talladega in particular, produced some of the most memorable finishes in the sport's history, for better or worse depending on which side of a given finish a fan was on. He finally won the Daytona 500 in 1998 on his 20th attempt, ending one of the most talked-about droughts in the sport's history at its single biggest race, a win that produced an emotional celebration from rival crews lining pit road to congratulate him — a rare moment of universal goodwill in a career built partly on divisive, hard-nosed racing. Earnhardt died in a last-lap crash at the 2001 Daytona 500, a tragedy that led directly to sweeping NASCAR safety reforms, including mandatory head-and-neck restraint devices and the development of the "car of tomorrow" safety chassis, changes credited with preventing further driver deaths in the sport in the decades since.
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- Top 5 NASCAR Drivers of All Time
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