Great piece by Dave Caldwell on the New York Times website today, "Losing Its Intimidator, NASCAR Has Strayed From Its Roots." Summing up the decade in NASCAR, Caldwell asserts that the loss of Dale Earnhardt after his final-lap wreck in the 2000 Daytona 500 had the strange effect of spiking the popularity of the sport while seeing a decline in its character. 

"(Earnhardt) was an old-timer, not reluctant to knock a competitor out of his way — a character who had made the sport fun. Two days before he died, he sat on a golf cart outside his mobile home and grumbled that Nascar was slowing the cars down to ensure closer racing.

“I want to be driving racecars to race them,” he said.