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Dashboard reminder for Dale

By RONDA RICH

Stevie, my friend for almost 20 years, is special. No one who knows her will dispute that.

It is almost impossible to find someone who is gentle and sweet yet stubborn and strong-willed. Normally, one gives way to the other, but not with Stevie.

“Watch out for the Redhead,” her husband will say because 35 years of marriage to her has taught him well.

She is one of the four close friends that I have christened “The Saints” because they are all prayer warriors strung together by the commonality of their strong faith and friendship with me.

I often joke that I am the sinner cast among them to humanize them. Otherwise, they would all be floating in a realm far above us common mortals. They are all as close to perfect love as is possible to find on earth. When one has a problem or heartache, I say, “I’ll call the other saints right now.” I do and the prayer chain begins.

Several years before Stevie’s husband, Darrell Waltrip, retired from NASCAR racing, she began a Sunday ritual of selecting a scripture for him, which he would then tape to the dash of his race car. One day, Dale Earnhardt happened to be with the Waltrips when Stevie handed the scripture to Darrell just before race time.

“What’s that,” he asked. When she explained, he asked, “Where’s mine?”

That was Earnhardt. He never liked to be outdone in any way by anybody. From that moment on, Stevie took out her Bible every Sunday morning and found two scriptures which she then copied in her neat print on small pieces of paper.

It was a rule. Earnhardt got to read both and then choose which one he wanted. He would have it no other way. When he chose, he would throw back his head, laugh happily and say, “I got the best one!”

On the first Sunday that the newly retired DW did not race but reported instead to the broadcast booth, Stevie selected a scripture for Earnhardt, although she was unsure if he would want to continue the tradition with Darrell gone.

Timidly, Stevie approached Earnhardt on pit road. He read it, pronounced it “Perfect!” then gathered her into a big bear hug. Then, he climbed into his car and took the green flag for the Daytona 500.

It isn’t clear how the media discovered that scripture but for the next week, it popped up in major publications like Time, Newsweek, New York Times, People, Sports Illustrated and Larry King asked Darrell about it in a live interview.

In the mangled wreckage that the warrior had ridden into his final battle, the last words he had ever read, perhaps stained with his blood, were found. Those words would seize the hearts of millions stunned and broken-hearted over his abrupt departure from this life.

Long after that day was over, Stevie was making coffee in the kitchen of their Southern plantation-like home in Franklin, Tenn. Perched on a stool in the corner, I watched and commented, “You know, Stevie. I think that your entire Christian life was in preparation for that one moment in time.”

With coffee pot in hand, she turned to face me. Not with a look of pride or satisfaction but one of teary-eyed awe. “Really?” she asked in a hopeful tone. “Do you think so?”

From the eighteenth chapter of Proverbs, she had chosen, “The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are safe.”

To those who loved him, admired him and cheered for him, those words brought comfort. For we believed it meant that, at last, Dale Earnhardt was safe.

And he was home.