“20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration, Dale Earnhardt will come to the caution flag to WIN the Daytona 500!”
Those were the words immortalized by then-CBS broadcaster Mike Joy on Feb. 15, 1998, when the seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion raced back to the start/finish line and took the yellow and white flags together to clinch his first and only victory in the Daytona 500.
In a storied career where Earnhardt won just about everything imaginable, the Daytona 500 was the one race that agonizingly alluded him until that 20th try.
The win, the finish, Joy’s call and all the crew members from all the race teams lining up on pit road to congratulate him post-race ultimately combined to create one of NASCAR’s most storied, iconic — and arguably greatest — moments.
But only watching the above video does not do justice to why Earnhardt’s win was such a historic moment. Instead, it was the two-decade journey of twists and turns that gave the moment its true meaning.
It was a moment amplified by Earnhardt’s storied legacy and his prowess at Daytona International Speedway, where he scored a still-standing record of 34 victories at the track. This included six International Race of Champions (IROC) wins, seven NASCAR Xfinity Series wins, six Busch Clash wins, 12 Daytona 500 Qualifying Duel wins (including an unprecedented 10 straight from 1990-1999) and three wins in points-paying Cup Series competition: two 400-milers in 1990 and 1993 and the granddaddy of them all in 1998.
It’s only fitting that arguably the greatest NASCAR driver of all time was one of the best to ever do it at NASCAR’s most prestigious racetrack. And it was Earnhardt’s status as the face of NASCAR, all of his wins at Daytona, his four runner-up Daytona 500 finishes (’84, ’93, ’95, ’96), his two last-lap Daytona 500 heartbreakers (’90, ’93) and his more than 600 laps led in the Great American Race before leading lap 200 that has made “20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration” resonate within the NASCAR community more than a quarter-century later.
Indeed, lap 200 of the 1998 Daytona 500 was Earnhardt’s 669th lap led in the Great American Race. He led enough laps in the Daytona 500 throughout his career to lead it wire-to-wire three times over, and if you were to randomly choose one of the 4,000 laps in the Daytona 500s between 1979 (his debut) and…
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