Many have crossed him, and they leave with only regrets for their actions. In every result, he stands as an example of what hard work and dedication will achieve. He roams like a lion, king of his jungle. His jungle is his and his alone. Every step he takes has purpose.
Every walk has reason.
This man died on the racetrack following a maneuver that was presumably designed to enable his younger charges, Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr., to finish first and second in the race. And they did, perhaps, because Earnhardt ran third behind them, screening off the rest of the field, not knowing or, perhaps, caring that it would become the ultimate sacrifice when Sterling Marlin bumped him, as Earnhardt has bumped so many others, and his car made the fatal turn into the retaining wall. And Earnhardt died for Waltrip's first victory, from the danger that defines his thrilling line of work and from the competitive toughness that largely defined him. Unlike so many deaths that are called tragedy, this truly is tragic. Not tragic the way 100 people dying in a plane crash is called tragic.