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Dale Earnhardt’s death 20 years ago hangs over 2021 Daytona 500

DAYTONA BEACH — Not a day goes by without the Waltrips — one of stock car racing’s first families — thinking of Dale.

Michael Waltrip delivered his seminal victory on the sport’s darkest day, a memory that haunts him 20 years later as NASCAR prepares to kick off the 2021 season at Daytona.

Darrell Waltrip said the late Dale Earnhardt Sr. still comes up so often in conversation, it’s as if he’s still around.

Instead, all that remains is a larger-than-life legacy and a sport that, sadly, is better and safer because of the death of perhaps the biggest star it will ever have.